• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.47
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• pp.310-333
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• 2001

The purposes of this research were 1) to investigate the characteristics of the meal service participants; 2) to evaluate the food service utilization of the elderly; 3) to identify major factors that affect food service satisfaction of the participants in Chungchongbuk-Do. For doing this, 309 subjects were selected and the survey research method was adopted. The characteristics of the meal service participants were similar to the characteristics of general elderly population in Korea. The public assistant recipients were under representative in this sample, that is, most of elderly people who participated in meal service consisted of non public assistant recipients. It meant that meal service was not provided to low-income elderly people. The health status of the elderly people was stable to be able to attend to the meal service organizations. The most important reason to use a meal service was to see their friends. It showed that meal services played an important role to provide support systems to the elderly people in community. Thus, meal services should be provided to the elderly people with social services. In order to analyze the factors influencing food service satisfaction, multiple regression analysis was employed. The results showed that physical activity, contact with friends who met in meal service program, and the number of social services were the important variables to predict meal service satisfaction in this study. These findings contributed to a better understanding of developing a meal service planning. Several improvement strategies were recommended to provide effective meal services. First, socio-economical characteristics of the elderly should be considered to provide appropriate services. Second, meal services should be provided to the elderly people with social services. Third, home delivery meal services should be available to the home-bound elderly.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.298-308
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• 2013

The elderly population in Korea is rapidly growing. As the population ages, meals become a greater concern, as physical and psychological health problems are directly affected by dietary life, especially for the lower-income elderly. Although the government provides support through a free congregate meal service, there is a lack of systematic management of this meal service. This study investigates the experience of the elderly, especially the symbolic meaning and issues regarding the congregate meal service in their dietary life, to establish strategies for improving congregate meal services. Qualitative data was collected from ten elderly receivers of meal services through in-depth interviews and data was analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological research methods. Overall, 90 significant statements, 13 formulated meanings, and five theme clusters were deduced. The five theme clusters for the importance of meal services to the elderly included the followings: "a real meal", "enjoyment of living", "maintenance of regular life", "place for social life" and "meal of silence". We found that the elderly regarded the congregate free meal service not only as meals to appreciate but also as a form of social life. Furthermore, the elderly did not typically express any complaints regarding congregate meal services because they are free. The results showed that it might be difficult to evaluate the quality of meal services based on the opinions of the service receivers. This study suggests it is necessary to develop multilateral evaluation methods to reflect the needs of the elderly and to improve the congregate meal services at elderly welfare centers.

• The Korean Journal of Food And Nutrition
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.355-366
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• 2018

The aim of this study is to investigate the awareness and satisfaction level of school meal services by elementary school students and their parents. Approximately 97.2% of student-subjects have agreed on the necessity of a free meal service for school lunch; 44.3% of student-subjects voiced the need to provide free meal services in order to eliminate discrimination of low-income students. Over one-third of student-subjects (36.7%) cited nutrition as the main benefit of providing a free meal service. The majority of parent-subjects (95.1%) have recognized the need for a free meal service in school; approximately 37.3% of parent-subjects responded to need the free meal service in order to eliminate the discrimination of impoverished students. Both student- and parent-subjects expressed a high level of satisfaction with the quality of ingredients and the type of soup/nutrition provided. Student-subjects insisted on better food hygiene and a new menu, but cited the noisy cafeteria as a problem associated with school meal services. In addition, approximately 56.5% of student-subjects responded to the need for nutritional education in school. Parent-subjects were primarily concerned with hygiene regarding the preparation of school meal services, noting the temperature of foods as the biggest problem in school meal services. The majority of parent-subjects (88.1%) responded to the need for the nutritional education in school. Results of this survey indicate that school meal services can be improved by increasing menu options and increasing food hygiene.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.335-349
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• 2015

The system of School Meal Service Support Centers was established to support the supply of high-quality food ingredients for school meal services when the School Meal Service Act was amended in 2006. A case study was conducted to examine the operating effects, success factors, and major obstacles of a School Meal Service Support Center which was highly evaluated for its operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Qualitative data were collected from eight stakeholders (two individuals each from the center, farms, schools, and distributors) through in-depth interviews in July 2013 and analyzed by using the thematic analysis method. The successful operation of the center helped to stabilize income and price among the stakeholders, increase ingredient quality, increase school meal reliability, reduce costs, and promote the consumption of agricultural products. Success factors were identified as the center director's commitment and insights, and the competitive operating system including fair operations, rational pricing, liberal consumer choice, total quality management, and partnerships with distributors. Major obstacles included a lack of diversity in supplied ingredients and a lack of administrative and financial support form the local government. The results can be used as baseline information to vitalize the system of School Meal Service Support Centers and increase the quality of school meal services.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.140-152
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• 2004

This study investigates and analyzes the diversity of menu in military meal services that are recognized by the soldiers who are familar with meal services, and suggests the implications on the results of the analysis. For the ranks of respondents in terms of demographic features, the sergeants and corporals were 43.2%(186) and 29.7%(128) apiece. It was identified that the diversity of menu and significant influences as 57.5%. Thus, it is necessary to diversity the menus more than the present menus to increase the satisfaction of new generation on military meal services. The most influential factor on the diversity of menu was the hard-boiled food as 29.9% among 15 items. Therefore, the first measure to intensify the satisfaction of soldiers on meal services is to diversity the hard-boiled food. Accordingly, this measure will contribute to relieve the most biggest complaints on the diversity of menu in military meal services. For this purpose, it is recommended to replace the kitchen work system consisted of kitchen polices with the non-officer system enabling the long-term service. The kitchen polices are transferred to the first reserve list when they are accustomed to their duties because the period of service is limited under the present kitchen police system. Therefore, the present kitchen police system has the problem that it can't overcome the limit in terms of the quality of meal service.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.233-246
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• 2014

This study investigates the level of satisfaction with quality attributes of meal services for low-income children in Wonju, Korea. Based on interviews with 287 subjects (users of meal boxes: 17.4%, card users: 82.6%; boys: 48.4%, girls: 51.6%; elementary school students: 44.4%, middle school students: 33.0%, high school students: 22.6%; two parents household: 29.8%, single- or no- parent household: 70.2%) through consent from their guardians, some key characteristics of the subjects and the relationships between their characteristics and the level of their satisfaction with meal services were examined. According to the results, the level of satisfaction ranged from 54.7% to 66.0% (those respondents indicating "very good" and "good") indicated that the meals were generally acceptable. The highest level of satisfaction was for sanitation (66.0%), followed by taste (64.0%), ease of choosing preferred menu items (61.9%), a proper temperature (61.9%), a sufficient amount (60.8%), diversity (56.3%), the comfortableness of the dining area (54.7%), and sufficient nutrition (41.0%). For these eight quality aspects of meal services, users of meal boxes were more likely to be satisfied with the comfortableness of the dining area, whereas card users, with the taste and temperature of the food. The type of meal service, the attitudes toward talking to friends about supporting meals, and subjectively perceived health status had significant effects on the level of satisfaction with meal services.

• Journal of Food Hygiene and Safety
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.213-220
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• 1994

Customary usage of oil at homes and rancidity of edible soybean oil by cooking frequency at homes and mass meal services were investigated. 80% of house wives bought the cooking oil by 1.8ι unit container and 70% of them read either the manufactured date or explanatory note for use. 85% of house wives kept oil in the storage case under sink or in the pantry chest, and 80% of oils were used once or twice and 20% used three times for cooking. Acid value(AV), iodine value(IV), peroxide value(POV), carbonyl value(CoV) and thiobarbituric acid value(TBAV) of fresh soybean oil were lower than standard level. In the rancidity by cooking frequency, the acid value, peroxide value, carbonyl value and thiobarbituric acid value increased significantly when oil was used once and iodine value decreased significantly when used once and twice at both mass meal services and homes. The level of the acid value, iodine value, carbonyl value and thiobarbituric acid value of oil used at mass meal services did not show significant difference from those of oil used at homes. But, the peroxide value of oil used thrice at mass meal services was significantly higher than those of homes.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.83-90
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between changes in the Department of Nutrition and patient satisfaction, following the changes in Food Services Management. Statistical data analyses were completed using the SAS/Win 6.12 program. The results can be summarized as follows. The working environment for dietitians and cooking and meal serving assistants was improved following to a change catering of food service management. The number of dietitians who worked in medical nutritional therapy and food services was increased from one to four, and the number of dietary consultations and meal rounds were increased 2.5-fold and 5-fold, respectively after the change services were implemented. Among the 10 items included in the patient satisfaction questionnaire, "Taste of meals" (p< 0.01) and "Satisfaction of offered menus" (p < 0.01) showed significantly higher scores before the catering. "Kindness of meal sewing assistant" this increase was not statistically significant, showed increased satisfaction after the catering, however.n after the catering, however.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.459-467
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• 2014

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to suggest the strategies for improvement of home-delivered meal services for the elderly, to identify reasons for recipients to get started with the services and to evaluate the attitude, acceptability and adaptation of recipients to the services from the perspective of life context. Methods: The data was collected through face-to-face in-depth interviews with eighteen low-income elderly recipients of home-delivered meals and analyzed using a qualitative research method. Results: The results were deduced as four themes which comprised of long-term vulnerable socioeconomic contexts resulted in entry to the services, conflicting acceptability to the services, passive adaptation to taking the services, and positive practices to cope with supplement free meals or other services. The service participation was initiated because of a combination of prolonged, vulnerable socioeconomic contexts, including poverty and unexpected life events such as diseases, disability, living alone, aging and unemployment. With regard to taking the services, conflicting acceptability was observed: positive aspects including saving living cost and good quality of meals, and negative aspects including lack of a tailored service and feeling of stigma. Although the recipients needed an individualized service, they did not express their needs and demands for the services and they accepted the unavailability as an accustomed, prolonged vulnerable socioeconomic context. With regard to lack of tailored services, either self-solution such as modification of eating patterns or community-based network and services were used. Conclusions: We suggest that a system to concretely identify recipients' attitude, acceptability and adaptation for home-delivered meal services should be developed in the establishment of a tailored nutrition support system for the low-income elderly.

• Journal of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.47-58
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• 2015

Purpose: This study was aimed at understanding meal services provided at long-term care facilities. Method: Interview survey was conducted using questionnaires at 254 facilities located in the Kyung-In area. Result: Of the residents, 37.4% were eating meals unassisted. Eating places included living rooms and residents' rooms in most facilities. Major noise source was television in 63.8%. Apron was applied to all elderly residents at mealtimes in 49.6% of the facilities. Half of the facilities used feeding utensils except for ordinary spoon and chopsticks. Of the facilities having individual prosthetic devices, dentures were applied before eating in 98%, glasses in 20.2% and hearing aids in 9.2%. Most facilities included the residents' favorite foods in menu: wheres, only 9.4% offered the menu which residents could choose. Conclusion: Standard guidelines and staff education for meal services need to be provided for elderly residents.