Abstract

The purpose of this study was to survey several aspects of food-related knowledge, attitude and behavior of college students. Seven hundred male and female students in Seoul and Kyunggi-do area were randomly selected. And self-administered questionnaires were used. It was consisted of weight concern, nutritional knowledge, meal frequency, preference of snacks and psychological aspects of eating behaviors. The results were as followes: 1. The 66.5% of males and 87.9% of females were concerned about weight control. While 42% of male respondents wanted weight gain and 43% weight loss, most of female respondents wanted to lose weight. 2. The score of nutritional knowledge of males was significantly lower than the score of females (p<0.01). 3. The meal frequency was 3.4 times a day for male students and 3.6 for female students. But males showed higher frequency rates in three regular meals and females showed higher rates in snacking. Both male and female students considered that supper was the most important meal of the day and skipped breakfast frequently. 4. Fruits, beverage and milk were favorite snacking items for college students. But there were some differences in selection of food items by snacking time. Carbonated drinks and coffee were frequently selected by morning male and female snackers. Noodles and cookies were preferred by males and cookies were preferred by females as afternoon snack. Fruits were most often preferred by both males and females in the evening. 5. Physical tiredness and/or psychological factors were observed to influence the amount of food intake. After increase of food intake, male students felt more comfortable than female students who were afraid of their weight gain.

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