Hye-Young Yang1, Hyo-Suk Lee2, Jayong Chung2

1Nutrition Education Major, Graduate School of Education, Kyung Hee University, 2Department of Food and Nutrition, College of Human Ecology, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea


Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and use of premium snacks (PS) in school aged children. In addition, the influence of their mothers attitude toward the PS use on the children’s PS eating behavior was examined.
Methods: 337 boys and 292 girls and their mothers (n=535) were participated in this study. Participants were recruited from two elementary schools located in Kyung-ki area. Information on general characteristics, the frequencies of general snack eating and associated factors, and the frequencies of PS eating and associated factors were obtained by a self-administered questionnaire.
Results: The mean frequency of PS eating were 1.12 times/wk in boys and 0.98 times/wk in girls. The PS eating frequency was positively associated with the frequency of eating general snacks in boys and the money spent on purchasing general snacks in girls. The main reasons for eating PS were ‘health’ followed by ‘taste’. The frequencies of general snack eating and those of PS use in mothers were highly associated with the frequencies of eating PS in children. Further, the perceptions on PS in mothers were significantly correlated with the frequencies of PS eating both in boys and in girls, although correlation coefficients were somewhat weak.
Conclusions: Our study showed that mother’s snack eating behavior and perceptions can affect their children’s PS uses. Our findings suggest that the education toward the mother’s eating behavior and nutrition knowledge are important in improving child’s eating behavior including reasonable and healthy snack choices.
Korean J Health Promot 2014;14(3):121-130

Keywords: Snacks, Children, Mother