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Lee and Kim: Evaluation of the diet and nutritional states of elementary and middle school students in the Daegu area by using nutrition quotient for children
Research Article

Journal of Nutrition and Health 2013; 46(5): 440-446.

Published online: 31 October 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4163/jnh.2013.46.5.440

Evaluation of the diet and nutritional states of elementary and middle school students in the Daegu area by using nutrition quotient for children

Su Jung Lee, Youngnam Kim

Department of Home Economics Education, Korea National University of Education, Chungju 363-791, Korea.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. (youngnam@knue.ac.kr)

Received 5 September 2013       Revised 24 September 2013       Accepted 14 October 2013

© 2013 The Korean Nutrition Society

(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

The purposes of this study are to assess the diet and nutritional states of elementary and middle school students in the Daegu area by using nutrition quotient (NQ) for children. A survey was conducted with 366 elementary school students and 364 middle school students. Elementary school students showed higher total NQ scores (66.2) than middle school students (58.3), without gender difference. Elementary school students showed higher NQ scores in all 5 domains (balance, diversity, abstinence, regularity, practice) than middle school students. As for gender difference, boys showed higher scores than girls in balance and diversity, and girls showed higher scores in abstinence than boys. When scores of 5 domains were evaluated as good or bad, the percentage of good was highest in abstinence (63.4%) and lowest in diversity (22.9%). The percentage distribution of NQ of 1st (excellent) to 5th (bad) grades were 8.4%, 13.6%, 44.5%, 19.3%, 14.2%, respectively. In the 1st grade, there were 9.5%p more elementary school students, and in the 5th grade, there were 11.6%p more middle school students. No gender differences were found in the distribution of the NQ grades. Since NQ for children presents a convenient method of evaluating the diet and nutritional states of many subjects simply and simultaneously, a follow-up study will hopefully revise and supplement the question items and standards of judgement by the age groups.

Keywords: NQ, balance, diversity, abstinence, regularity, practice

Figures and Tables

Table 1
Socioeconomic status of the subjects
jnh-46-440-i001

1) n (%)

**: p < .01, ***: p < .001

Table 2
Health related characteristics of the subjects
jnh-46-440-i002

1) n (%)

***: p < .001

Table 3
Comparison of balance, diversity, abstinence, regularity, and practice score between elementary and middle school, male and female students
jnh-46-440-i003

1) Mean ± SD

*: p < .05, **: p < .01, ***: p < .001

Table 4
Comparison of balance, diversity, abstinence, regularity, and practice score between elementary and middle school, male and female students
jnh-46-440-i004

1) n (%)

*: p < .05, **: p < .01, ***: p < .001

Table 5
Comparison of NQ grades between elementary and middle school, male and female students
jnh-46-440-i005

1) n (%)

***: p < .001

Table 6
Influence of environmental factors on balance, diversity, abstinence, regularity, and practice score
jnh-46-440-i006

1) F-value

*: p <.05, **: p <.01, ***: p <.001

Notes

This research was supported by 2013 KNUE research grants from Korea National University of Education.

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