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Cho and Kim: The Current State of Food Allergy of Preschool Childcare Facilities in Hanam
Research Article

Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 2015; 20(4): 251-258.

Published online: 30 August 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2015.20.4.251

The Current State of Food Allergy of Preschool Childcare Facilities in Hanam

Wookyoun Cho1, Jinah Kim2

1Department of Food and Nutrition, College of BioNano Technology, Gachon University, Gyeonggi, Korea.

2Hanam Center for Children's Foodservice Management, Gyeonggi, Korea.

Corresponding author: Wookyoun Cho. Department of Food and Nutrition, College of BioNano Technology, Gachon University, 1342 Seongnam-daero, Sujeonggu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi 13120, Korea. Tel: (031) 750-5972, Fax: (031) 750-5974, wkcho@gachon.ac.kr

Received 7 August 2015       Revised 18 August 2015       Accepted 21 August 2015

Copyright © 2015 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

The purpose of this study was to investigate how to manage food allergy of pre-school children, focusing on the current status of the food allergy in childcare facilities in Hanam which have less than 100 children.

Methods

Targeting 159 preschool childcare facilities, survey was carried out for a month in March, 2015. Recovery rate was 66.7%. 106 surveys out of 159 were available for analysis using SPSS statistical program version 19.0.

Results

Among 106 facilities, 58 (54.7%) reported that none of their children had a food allergy and 48 (45.3%) reported one more children had a food allergy. Total number of children having a food allergy was 71. Among them, the occurrences of food allergy in males were significantly more than that of the females (p < 0.001). Further, children under 2 years of age had significantly more food allergy than the other ages (p < 0.001). The allergic inducing foods were nuts (23.3%), egg (17.8%), milk and dairy products (16.4%), fish and shellfish (13.7%), instant foods (12.3%), fruits (8.2%), soybean (4.1%), meat (2.7%), and cereals (1.4%) in order, and 6 children out of 71 were allergic to more than 2 food items. The clinical symptoms of the food allergy were a skin reaction (87.9%) and an oropharyngeal & respiratory reaction (12.1%). Majority of childcare facilities (80.3%) didn't serve alternative foods for children with food allergy. Necessity for food allergy education was significantly higher in facilities with food allergy issues than without such issues.

Conclusions

The Center for Children's Foodservice Management need to educate workers of childcare facilities and parents about managing food allergy and enforce a plan to provide alternative menu to children with food allergies.

Keywords: food allergy, childcare facilities, center for children's foodservice management

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Provision of alternative food

kjcn-20-251-g001
Table 1

General characteristics of childcare facilities

kjcn-20-251-i001

1) N (%)

**: P < 0.01 significantly different between registered and unregistered facilities by chi square test

Table 2

Numbers of children with food allergy by childcare facilities

kjcn-20-251-i002

1) N (%)

Table 3

Occurrences of food allergy in children according to gender and ages

kjcn-20-251-i003

1) Significantly different by independent t-test

2) Significantly different by one way ANOVA

***: P < 0.001

Table 4

The allergy inducing foods

kjcn-20-251-i004

1) N (%)

Table 5

Clinical symptoms of food allergy

kjcn-20-251-i005
Table 6

Principal's recognition of necessity for food allergy education

kjcn-20-251-i006

1) Mean±SD

5-point Likert scale (not needed at all=1, strongly needed=5)

*: P < 0.05 significantly different between facilities with food allergic children and facilities without food allergic children by independent t-test

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