• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.86-95
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• 2005

Teachers who are responsible for children's education are very important to help the school age children to have right nutrition knowledge, they are confronted with difficulties to teach due to the lack of nutrition knowledge as well as materials that can be easily understood by children. The purpose of this study was to look into the basic knowledge of elementary school teachers on nutrition. The elementary school teachers investigated didn't get good marks in nutritional knowledge, food and cooking method knowledge and sanitary knowledge, as the collective averages in those areas were respectively $56.08{\pm}14.80$, $60.52{\pm}10.95$, and $45.25{\pm}16.13$. Sixty seven percent of respondents the largest group, acquired nutritional information through mass media, but they wanted to be given teaching information in the form of educational materials(49.0%). More than 70 percent believed that nutrition should be educated by nutrition teachers (p<0.01), and as for what should be handled in nutrition education, they thought that students should be educated to build the right eating habits (59.5%). Based on the results, a sequential nutrition education program for the lower grades of school children was developed. This program consisted of five different categories, and according to the results, that was designed to deal with the knowledge of teachers on nutrition, food, cooking method and hygiene, table manners and food-borne illness.