• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.157-176
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to estimate the effect of "The unsafe food program" designed for improving children's biased eating habits coming from defenceless exposure to the instant food, fast food and adulterated food with MSG and artificial additives with analyzing the current condition of children's biased eating habits and preference for the unsafe foods. This program was performed for 5 year old children who was attending the kindergarten run by the author every day for two months. "The unsafe food program" consisted of the surveys on the parents' attitude towards food and health and children's eating habits, and of programs that was designed to attract children's attention to their daily food intake and to provide physical fitness, information about differences between wholesome food and junk food, and junk food's bad impacts on human body for children. In order to see the changes of children's body through this program, two physical examinations was preformed: SH pharmaceutical company's hair test to measure the accumulation level of toxic metal in children's hair and children's nutrition level before starting the program, and Ilsan Health Center's 'INBODY' test to analyze children's body composition such as body weight, skeletal muscle mass, body fat mass, BMI, body fat percentage and so on before and after the program. The results from this program follow as below. First, the unsafe foods were excluded from children's diet after parents came to recognize the negative effects of the unsafe foods. Second, children became highly interested in their daily diet through the course of gathering information by themselves and discussions together while testing and analyzing foods, and children demonstrated more self-restraint on fast food and instant food. Third, children's body constitution turned out to be improved by physical fitness in addition to this program. Fourth, children formed a good habit of eating well-balanced diet consisting of vegetables, staple food and fruits through this program designed to improve children's biased eating habits. From the results of this study it was confirmed that "the unsafe food project" had effects on improving children's eating habits.