Factors affecting preference of vegetable in elementary school students: based on social cognitive theory

Su Hyeon Cha; Ho Kyung Ryu

doi:10.4163/jnh.2019.52.3.285

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Cha and Ryu: Factors affecting preference of vegetable in elementary school students: based on social cognitive theory

Research Article

Journal of Nutrition and Health 2019; 52(3): 285-296.

Published online: 24 June 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4163/jnh.2019.52.3.285

Factors affecting preference of vegetable in elementary school students: based on social cognitive theory

Su Hyeon Cha

, Ho Kyung Ryu

Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Pusan National University, Busan 46241, Korea.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. tel: +82-51-510-7397, hokryu@pusan.ac.kr

Received 14 November 2018 Revised 8 February 2019 Accepted 8 May 2019

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

Purpose

This study was conducted to identify the factors affecting vegetable preferences of children based on the social cognitive theory to reduce imbalances in vegetable consumption.

Methods

The survey investigated 177 elementary school students in Yangsan, Gyeongsangnam-do, in June of 2018. The subjects consisted of 44 fifth graders (27.7%) and 128 (72.3%) sixth graders.

Results

Among personal factors of the Social Cognitive Theory, positive outcome expectation and self-efficacy of the vegetable preference group were significantly higher than those of the non-preference group. Negative barrier scores of the non-preference group were significantly higher than those of the preference group, and the biggest barrier was that vegetables were tasteless. Among behavioral factors, the nutritional knowledge of vegetables was high, but the degree of practice was low. Practice score of the vegetable preference group was significantly higher than that of the non-preference group. Among environmental factors, the vegetable preference group was more likely to accept advice from people around them than the non-preference group and the most influential people were doctors and parents. In the vegetable intake environment, children in the vegetable preference group had high accessibility to vegetables. Correlation analysis and regression analysis of the social cognitive factors and vegetable preferences revealed all factors except nutritional knowledge showed significant correlation with vegetable preference. And surrounding people (p < 0.01), practice (p < 0.01), and self-efficacy (p < 0.05) had positive effects on vegetable preference.

Conclusion

These results suggest that providing the health benefits from eating vegetables and educating children for improving their self-confidence are necessary for increasing the preference for vegetables and their intake by children.

Keywords: social cognitive theory, vegetable preference, elementary school student

Figures and Tables

Table 1

General characteristics of the subjects

1) n (%) by χ²-test

2) Mean ± SD by independent t-test

Table 2

Anthropometric status of the subjects

1) Percentile of BMI < 85^th

2) Percentile of BMI 85 ~ 95^th

3) Percentile of BMI ≥ 95^th

4) Mean ± SD by independent t-test

5) n (%) by χ²-test

Table 3

Personal factors related to vegetables intake

1) Mean ± SD ‘strongly disagree’ 1, ‘disagree’ 2, ‘agree’ 3, ‘strongly agree’ 4)

^*** p < 0.001, ^** p < 0.01, ^* p < 0.05 by independent t-test

Table 4

Behavioral factors related to vegetables intake

1) Mean ± SD (‘right’ 1, ‘wrong’ 0)

2) Mean ± SD (‘strongly disagree’ 1, ‘disagree’ 2, ‘agree’ 3, ‘strongly agree’ 4)

^*** p < 0.001, ^* p < 0.05 by independent t-test

Table 5

Environmental factors related to vegetables intake

1) Mean ± SD (‘strongly disagree’ 1, ‘disagree’ 2, ‘agree’ 3, ‘strongly agree’ 4)

^*** p < 0.001, ^** p < 0.01 by independent t-test

Table 6

Pearson's correlation coefficient between social cognitive theory factor and vegetable preference

^*** p < 0.001, ^* p < 0.05 by person correlation analysis

Table 7

Multiple regression analysis on the effect of social cognitive theory factors on vegetable preference

1) B: non-standardized regression coefficient

2) SE: standard deviation

3) β: standardized regression coefficient, the closer to 1 the higher the influence

4) t-value : the statistic of regression coefficient

5) Adj.R²: modified R²

6) F: the significance test coefficient of the regression model

^* p < 0.05, ^** p < 0.01 by multiple regression analysis

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ORCID iDs

Su Hyeon Cha
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0015-4459

Ho Kyung Ryu
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4212-7363

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