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Asano, Yoon, and Ryu: Chinese Female Marriage Immigrants' Dietary Life after Immigration to Korea : Comparison between Han-Chinese and Korean-Chinese
Research Article

Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 2014; 19(4): 317-327.

Published online: 31 August 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2014.19.4.317

Chinese Female Marriage Immigrants' Dietary Life after Immigration to Korea : Comparison between Han-Chinese and Korean-Chinese

Kana Asano1, Jihyun Yoon1, Si-Hyun Ryu2

1Department of Food and Nutrition, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

2Department of Nutrition and Foodswervice Management, Paichai University, Daejeon, Korea.

Corresponding author: Si-Hyun Ryu. Department of Nutrition and Foodservice Management, Paichai University, 155-40 Baejae-ro, Seo-gu, Daejeon 302-735, Korea. Tel: (042) 520-5907, Fax: (070) 4369-1778, ryush@pcu.ac.kr

Received 19 June 2014       Revised 12 August 2014       Accepted 26 August 2014

Copyright © 2014 The Korean Society of Community Nutrition

(open-access):

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Objectives

This study was conducted to investigate Chinese female marriage immigrants' dietary life after immigration to Korea, focusing on comparison between Han-Chinese (traditional Chinese) and Korean-Chinese (Chinese of Korean descent).

Methods

An in-person survey was conducted with women married to Korean men, having one child or more aged 1-6 years old, and having resided in Korea for at least one year before the survey. The data were collected from the 309 respondents comprising 151 Han-Chinese and 158 Korean-Chinese in the summer of 2013.

Results

Overall, there was no significant difference in dietary practice, dietary acculturation, dietary behavior, dietary habits, and food intake between the Han-Chinese and the Korean-Chinese respondents. Over 50% of the respondents ate Korean food every day. The overall level of dietary acculturation was about 3.5 out of 5 points. The average score of healthy dietary behavior was a little bit higher than 3 out of 5 points. Approximately 3/4 of the respondents showed increasing frequency of eating out. The respondents reporting increase food diversity were over 70%. Decreased frequency of skipping meal was about 60% of the respondents. Over 50% of the respondents showed increasing consumption of Kimchi, vegetables, fruit, and meat.

Conclusions

Dietary life of Korean-Chinese female marriage immigrants was similar to that of Han-Chinese female marriage immigrants after immigration to Korea. The results from this study suggest that not only Han-Chinese but also Korean-Chinese should be targeted in various diet-related acculturation support programs as important multicultural populations in Korea.

Keywords: Chinese female immigrants, dietary life, dietary acculturation, dietary habit, food intake

Figures and Tables

Table 1
The general characteristics of the respondents
kjcn-19-317-i001

1) p-value by chi-square test

2) N (%)

Table 2
The dietary practice of Chinese female marriage immigrants in Korea
kjcn-19-317-i002

1) p-value by chi-square test

2) N (%)

3) Community / Internet

4) Price / Korean-style

Table 3
The dietary acculturation level of Chinese female marriage immigrants in Korea
kjcn-19-317-i003

1) p-value by chi-square test

2) 5 point scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree

3) Mean ± SD

Table 4
The perception on Korean food of Chinese female marriage immigrants in Korea
kjcn-19-317-i004

1) p-value by chi-square test

2) 5 point scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree

3) Mean ± SD

Table 5
The healthy dietary behavior of Chinese female marriage immigrants in Korea
kjcn-19-317-i005

1) p-value by chi-square test

2) 5 point scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree

3) Mean ± SD

4) Reverse coding

Table 6
Chinese female marriage immigrants' changes in dietary habits after immigration to Korea
kjcn-19-317-i006

1) p-value by chi-square test

2) N (%)

3) 33% of the cells had expected counts of less than 5. Therefore "no change" and "decrease" response categories were combined into a single category for chi-square test.

Table 7
Chinese female marriage immigrants' change in food intake after immigration to Korea
kjcn-19-317-i007

Notes

This research was supported by Multicultural Human Ecology Center, Research Institute of Human Ecology, Seoul National University.

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