Abstract

This study investigated the overall conditions related to family meals, including perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors, among middle and high school students. The data were collected from 773 male and female students attending middle and high schools in Seoul and Kyunggi-Do from March to May 2006, using pre-tested self-administered questionnaires. The results are as follows: 78.9% of the subjects lived with their parents and siblings, and 75.7% regarded family meals as meals eaten with all family members living together in a household. As for the frequency of family meals, 40.1% of the middle school subjects answered that they ate with their family 'more than once per day' and 20.8% answered '1 or 2 time per a week'. However 21.0% of the high school students had family meals 'more than once per day', and 31.7% had family meals '1 or 2 times per a week', showing a significant difference between the groups(p<0.001). When the degree of satisfaction with life was evaluated using a Likert scale(strongly satisfied 5 point, strongly unsatisfied 1 point), the middle school students showed a significantly higher level of satisfaction than the high school students towards daily life, health, nutritive conditions, and family care. feelings, attitudes, and behaviors toward family meals were also evaluated(strongly agree 5 point, strongly disagree 1 point), and the results showed that the subjects had positive psychological feelings, with significant differences based on the frequency of family meals. Likewise, the groups who ate frequent family meals scored higher on aspects related to having positive attitudes and behaviors toward the family meal, implying that eating family meals is associated with promoting friendship, psychological stability, and positive thinking in adolescents. These findings suggest that attention needs to he directed toward increasing the frequency of family meals and creating a positive family meal environment.

Keywords

• Family meal;
• perception;
• attitude;
• behavior;
• frequency of family meal