Abstract

The purpose of study was to investigate nutritional supplements intake of elementary school students aged 7 to 12 years in Incheon The subjects were 631 mothers of schoolchildren and cross sectional study was conducted by a self-administered questionnaire. Nutritional supplements were taken by $42.3\%$ of the surveyed elementary school students. Among nutritional supplements they toot vitamin and mineral accounted for $47.3\%$, herbs and chinese medicine $39.3\%$ and dietary supplements $10.7\%.$ Among reasons for taking nutritional supplements, help for growth, health promotion, supply for deficient nutrients and prevention or treatment of disease were in order. As for the reasons for not taking nutritional supplements, most of the subjects answered that meals are enough in getting nutrients for children Mother of elementary school students usually Dew the health claim of the nutritional supplements before taking the Also they usually got the information of the nutritional supplements 1mm doctors or pharmacist and bought the nutritional supplements at drugstores, oriental medicine clinic and on-line shop in order. As for the effect of nutritional supplements, $43.7\%$ of the subjeces answered as 'effective' and $81.7\%$ of the mother of elementary school students who took nutritional supplements answered positively that they would continue to have their children take it Among the reasons they would continue to have their children take it help for growth ranked the first. therefore, these results my provide basic informations on nutritional supplements used by the elementary school students in Incheon.

Keywords

• Elementary school students;
• nutritional supplements;
• intake