• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.430-458
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• 1990

Care is a central concept of nursing. Nursing would not exist without caring. Care and quality of life are closely related. Human behavior is a manifestation of culture. We can say that caring and nursing care are expression of culture. The nurse must understand the relationship of culture with care for ensure quality nursing care. But knowledge of cultural factors in nursing is not well developed. Time and in - depth study are needed to find meaningful relationships between culture and care. Nurses recognized the importance of culturally appropriate nursing There are two care systems in culturally based nursing. The folk care system and the professional nursing care system. The folk care system existed long before the professional nursing care system was introduced into this culture. If the discrepancy between these two care systems is great, the client may receive inappropriate nursing care. Culture and subcaltures are diverse and dynamic in nature. Nurses need to know the caring behaviors, patterns, and their meaning in their own culture. In Korea we have taken some first step to study cultural nursing phenomena. It is not our intent necessarily to return to the past and develop a nationalistic of nursing, but to identify the core of traditional caring and relate that to professional nursing care. Our Assumptions are as follows : 1) Care is essential for human growth, well being and survial. 2) 7here are diverse and universal forma, expressions, patterns, and processes of human care that exist transcul - turally. 3) The behaviors and functions of caring differ according to the social structure of each culture. 4) Cultures have folk and professional care values, beliefs, and practices. To promote the quality of nursing care we must understand the folk care value, beliefs, and practices. We undertook this study to understand caring in our traditional culture. The Goals of this study were as follows : 1) To identify patterns in caring behavior, 2) To identify the structural components of caring, and 3) To understand the meaning and some principles of caring. We faised several questions in this study. Who is the care-giver? Who is the care-receipient? Was the woman the major care -giver at any time? What are the patterns in caring behavior? What art the priciples underlying the caring process? We used an interdisciplinary team approach, composed of representatives from nursing and anthropology, to contribute in -depth understanding of caring through a socicaltural perspeetive. A Field study was conducted in Ro-Bong, a small agricultural kinship village. The subjects were nine women and one man aged be or more years of age. Data were collected from january 15 to 21, 1990 through opem-ended in-depth interviews and observations. The interview focused on caring behaviors sorrounding birth, aging, death and child rearing. We analysed these data for meaning, pattern and priciples of caring. In this report we describe caring behaviors surrounding childbirth. The care-givers were primarily mothers- in -low, other women in the family older than the mother - to- be, older neighbor woman, husbands, and mothers of the mother-to- be. The care receivers were the mother-to-be the baby, and the immediate family as a component of kinship. Emerging caring behavior included praying, helping proscribing, giving moral advice(Deug - Dam), showing concern, instructing, protecting, making preparations, showing consideration, touching, trusting, encouraging, giving emotional comfort, being with, worrying about, being patient, preventing problems, showing by an example, looking after bringing up, taking care of postnatal health, streng thening the health condition, entering into another's feelings(empathizing), and sharing food, joy and sorrow The emerging caring component were affection, touching, nurtuing, teaching, praying, comforting, encouraging, sharing. empathizing, self - discipline, protecting, preparing, helping and compassion. Emerging principles of. caring were solidarity, heir- archzeal relationships, sex - role distinction. Caring during birth expresses the valve of life and reflects the valued traditional beliefs that human birth is given by god and a unique unifying family event reaching back to include the ancestors and foreward to later generations. In addition, We found positive and rational foundations for traditionl caring behaviors surrounding birth, these should not be stigmatized as inational or superstitious. The nurse appropriately adopts the rational and positive nature of traditional caring behaviors to promote the quality of nursing care.

• Journal of Nutrition and Health
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.7-15
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• 1976

The Purpose of this study was to determine every possible correlation between food habits and body statures of primary school children, aged ten years old. This study was conducted from July to October of 1975. In July, prepared questionaires concerning life style, anthropometry, food preference, and food behavior were distributed through school teachers to 425 children; 219 boys and 206 girls, in the 5th grade of three elementary schools in the city of Seoul. Then, in October, when subjects had been classified into underweight/obese by statistical analysis, mothers of obese or underweight children were interviewed by the authors to determine weaning history, daily food consumption of their children, and opinions of various snacks for children. Analysis of results in terms of correlation coefficient, chisquare test and percentage calculations, are as follows: 1. Physical growth and development Boys Girls Height (cm) $134.8{\pm}5.74\;134.4{\pm}5.97$ Weight (kg) $30.0{\pm}4.27\;29.5{\pm}5.16$ Chestgirth (cm) $64.1{\pm}3.59\;63.3{\pm}3.81$ Arm circumference (cm) $18.3{\pm}1.61\;18.2{\pm}1.70$ Triceps skinfold thickness (mm) $10.9{\pm}5.13\;12.7{\pm}4.86$ Various indices of nutrition such as relative weight, relative chestgirth, $R{\ddot{o}}hrer's$ index, Kaup index, Vervaeck index were determined. 2. Food habits 1) Food $preference{\cdots}{\cdots}A$ varying number of foods were selected from 60 items were accepted. It was found that the food which children liked best was fruit and snacks were popular one. Lowest ranking among LIKED foods were from strongly flavored vegetables and organ meat. In general, girls had more food dislikes than did boys. Selected as liked foods were fruits, rice noodle soup, biscuits, and peanuts. Disliked foods were liver, green onions, onions, green pepper, mushrooms, oysters, shellfish, and pork. Items which children never ate before were liver, mushrooms, fish cake, boiled rice mixed with sorghum, mayonnaise, and fresh water firsh. Reasons which children gave for dislike were undesirable flavor and odor. 2) Food $behavior{\cdots}{\cdots}It$ was found that boys liked sweet and salty flavors more than did the girls who more often liked sour flavor. The majority of children enjoyed evening meals more than lunch and breakfast. A number of children skipped breakfast because of lack of appetite or lack of time before going to school. Snacks were the most popular food, especially among girls. Their snacking habits were formed by the encouragement of the mother, and the relieve boredom. Educational backgrounds of mothers and family economical levels of children were remarkable correlated with mothers' attitudes toward feeding of children. There were several interesting findings relating body stature to some other responses; such as that the obese child has a small number of brothers, higher birth order, higher educated mothers and higher family cultural background. It was also discovered that food perference, except for fat and oil group foods was not related to body stature. Sweet taste was liked best and pepperly taste was mostly disliked. Sour taste was popular in the group of underweight. Underweight children were more finicky, disliked snacking, and didn't get much attention from their mothers. 3) Correlation between body stature and nutrition during their infancy. The majority of children, both from obese and underweight, were breast fed as infant. Twenty five per cent of obese children and 17.4 per cent of underwight children started weaning at $1{\sim}6$ months old. The most popular supplemental food of weaning was cereal gruel for the obese group, while boiled white rice and cereal gruel were most common for the underweight group. Highly significant relationships were found between stature of parents and their children. In the obese group 47.8 per cent of fathers and 45.9 per cent of mothers were overweight; however, none of the fathers and only one mother was found to be underweight. In daily food consumption patterns, meals consisting of bread or noodle were popular in the obese group but disliked by the underweight group. The study found clear contrast in that the obese group liked meat and fish while the underweight group liked fruits and vegetables, especially kimchee. The obese children desired to eat cereal foods, milk and milk products, and fat foods while the underweight group desired to eat fruits and vegetables. Frequency of snacks per day was much greater in the obese group. Foods which mothers believed to be good for the health were carrots, cucumbers, fruits, milk, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and breads, while sweet foods such as candies, drinks. chocolate were considered not good for the teeth. Watching television was not significantly related to statures of children. Most significant relationships were found beween frequencies of family guest meals/and eating-out, and children's statures. Nutritional problems which have been considered for the malnourished children in addition to those of children who have a tendency toward obesity, must be taken into consideration in the development of proper nutrition education through the channels of regular school teaching and teaching by parents in the homes. Korean standards of anthropometric measurements for children should be revised, current measurements show much higher figures than present Korean standards.