Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate nutrition knowledge, dietary attitude and a food habits of middle school students. The study was carried out through questionnaire. The subjects were 431 middle school students (boys 298, girls 133) in Chonbuk area. In nutrition knowledge, there were no significant differences in total scores between boys and girls. However, the girls showed higher score in knowledge of weight control than boys did (p < 0.05). In dietary attitude, there were significant differences in attitude of "balanced meal (p < 0.05)", "sufficient protein intake (p < 0.01)", "food diversity (p < 0.001)" and "overeating (p < 0.01)" between boys and girls. The boys showed better dietary attitudes than the girls did. In food habits, there were significant differences in the rate of skipping breakfast (p < 0.05), the rates of skipping dinner (p < 0.01), the frequency of snacks (p < 0.05), the type of snacks (p < 0.05) between boys and girls. The girls showed higher rates of skipping a meal and frequency of snacks than the boys did. It suggests that gender should be considered for an effective and practical nutrition education for middle school students to improve dietary attitudes and food habits.

• Keywords: middle school students; nutrition knowledge; dietary attitude; food habit