Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate dietary habits, dietary attitudes, perceptions for nutritional importance, nutritional knowledge and frequency of food intake to get the basic data of effective nutritional knowledge to form desirable dietary habits of students. This study was carried out through a questionnaire. The subjects were 362 teenagers (boys 161, girls 201) in some farming and fishing regions of Jeonnam. The most desirable dietary habit was that both boys and girls never skipped their lunch, the undesirable dietary habit was that boys ate too fast and girls had too many snacks. While boys ate faster than girls (p < 0.01), girls skipped dinner more frequently than boys (p < 0.01). In terms of dietary attitudes, boys had more desirable attitudes than girls in that they "choose nutritious food" (p < 0.01), "enjoyed healthy food more than favorite food" (p < 0.01), "think about basic food groups when having something" (p < 0.01) while girls had more desirable attitudes than boys in that they "only have favorite food" (p < 0.01). In nutritional knowledge, girls showed a percentage of more correct answers than boys in "is likely to suffer anemia without enough iron" (p < 0.05), and "it doesn't need to eat fat, which causes obesity" (p < 0.05). In general, girls had higher nutritional knowledge than boys. For frequency of food intake, boys ate more fried and broiled food than girls (p < 0.05). In general, boys had nutritional unbalanced diets more than girls. As a result, girls had higher levels of nutritional knowledge and boys had more desirable dietary habits and attitudes. We should have systematic and repetitive education about nutrition so that teenagers could practice their nutritional knowledge in diets. Moreover, it is necessary to develop proper education for their genders.

• Keywords: dietary habit; dietary attitude; nutritional knowledge