Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a nutrition education website for children, especially those around the 4th-6th grade levels. Among the already existing websites providing nutritional information for children, 7 websites with comparable amounts of information were evaluated in terms of their topics, credibility, content, ease of use, and aesthetics. In addition, a survey was conducted to assess the need for nutrition information among 305 elementary students. The food pyramid was the topic offered most often on those websites. Information on nutrients, digestion, food safety, nutrition labeling, and healthy eating habits were available on the websites. Some of those websites also provided games or quizzes to attract the children's interest. However, seine of the websites did not give any information on the person responsible for providing the information, which is most important in determining the credibility of the website. Other problems were that some information was too difficult for children, and some of the websites did not provide a way to search for information. According to the survey results, the topics that children wanted to know about were 'desirable weight', 'cooking', 'correct food choice', 'weight control method', 'calories consumed during exercise' but, they did not have a high interest in 'asking questions', 'books with nutrition messages', 'under weight', 'negative effect of weight control' and 'helping hungry children'. Based on these results, we developed a new nutrition education web-site, ifood' (http://ifood.or.kr). We focused on helping children develop healthy eating habits by providing information which is easy and practical for children. However, we neither included the program to assess their dietary intake, nor provided entertaining background sounds, which children like. Also, the game section is composed mainly of quizzes. Therefore, we need to further develop exciting games to teach nutrition to children. In the near future, the newly developed website should be evaluated by children regarding understandability and coverage of the contents as well as usability and design, and then revised to improve the educational effect.

• Keywords: nutrition education; website; internet; children