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Woo, Lee, Lee, Lee, and Lee: Gender Differences in Adolescents' Dietary Perceptions and Practices
Research Article

Korean Journal of Community Nutrition 2016; 21(2): 165-177.

Published online: 30 April 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5720/kjcn.2016.21.2.165

Gender Differences in Adolescents' Dietary Perceptions and Practices

Taejung Woo1, Hye-Jin Lee1, Kyoung Ae Lee2, Seung Min Lee3, Kyung-Hea Lee1

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

2Department of Practical Arts Education and Centre for Child Nutrition Education, Busan National University of Education, Busan, Korea.

3Department of Food and Nutrition, Sungshin Woman's University, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Kyung-Hea Lee. Department of Food and Nutrition, Changwon National University, 20 Changwondaehakro, Uichang-gu, Changwon, Gyeongnam, 51140, Korea. Tel: (055) 213-3514, Fax: (055) 281-7480, khl@changwon.ac.kr

Received 14 February 2016       Revised 28 March 2016       Accepted 25 April 2016

Copyright © 2016 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 attempted to compare adolescents' dietary behaviors and perceptions by gender in order to recommend useful strategies for nutrition interventions.

Methods

Subjects were 2,363 middle school (MS) and high school (HS) students. They completed a self-administered questionnaire on their interest in diet and health, dietary perceptions, nutrition knowledge, dietary practices, and dietary environment at home. Data were analyzed using t-test, χ2-test, and simple regression analysis by gender and by school groups.

Results

Overall, girls obtained higher scores than boys did for "interest" (MS: p<0.001; HS: p<0.01), "dietary perceptions" (MS: p<0.001; HS: p<0.01), and "knowledge" (MS: p<0.01; HS: p<0.001). Regarding "dietary practices," no gender differences were observed among MS students, however, among HS students, boys obtained higher scores-reflecting good practices-than girls did (p<0.01). In all subjects, dietary environment at home was strongly associated with dietary practice than other variables (MS boys: β=0.435, p<0.001; MS girls: β=0.492, p<0.001, HS boys: β=0.271, p<0.001; HS girls: β=0.429, p<0.001).

Conclusions

We observed gender differences in some of the variables such as knowledge and perception among adolescent students. Educational programs and core strategies that consider these gender differences need to be developed. Specifically, for girls, educational programs should focus on facilitating dietary recommendation adherence, whereas for boys, the program could focus on improving dietary knowledge and perceptions.

Keywords: dietary perception, dietary practice, adolescent

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Comparison of interest in diet and health between the groups (n=2,353)

kjcn-21-165-i001

1) Mean±SD (5 likert scale: '1' never through '5' very much)

*: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001 by t-test

Table 2

Comparison of perception on dietary education between the school groups (n=2,353)

kjcn-21-165-i002

1) N (%)

2) Multiple response

*: p<0.05, **: p<0.01, ***: p<0.001 by χ2-test

Table 3

Comparison of dietary perception between the groups (n=2,353)

kjcn-21-165-i003

※: The item was scored inversely

1) Mean±SD (5 likert scale: '1' strongly disagree through '5' strongly agree)

*: P<0.05, **: P<0.01, ***: P<0.001 by t-test

Table 4

Comparison of nutrition knowledge between the groups (n=2,353)

kjcn-21-165-i004

1) Mean±SD (Total score: 15, 1-right, 0-wrong), *: P<0.05, **: P<0.01, ***: P<0.001 by t-test

Table 5

Comparison of dietary practices between the groups (n=2,353)

kjcn-21-165-i005

1) Mean±SD(5 likert scale: '1' strongly disagree through '5' strongly agree), *: P<0.05, **: P<0.01, ***: P<0.001 by t-test

Table 6

Comparison of dietary environment at home between the groups (n=2,353)

kjcn-21-165-i006

1) N (%)

2) The variables were regrouped together as dietary environment at home in regression analysis. Each item was scored using 5 likert scale ('1' not at all through '5' always).

*: P<0.05, **: P<0.01, ***: P<0.001 by χ2-test

Table 7

Regression analysis between dietary practices and related variables (n=2,353)

kjcn-21-165-i007

Dependent variable: dietary Practice

1) Environment (breakfast frequency, availability of vegetables, availability of fruits and milk)

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (14162MFDS130).

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ORCID iDs

Kyung-Hea Lee
https://orcid.org/http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0444-4824

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