A Study on Dietary Pattern of Pre-school Children

It is said that a mode of dietary behavior changes together with socioeconomic and cultural transformation. Formation of dietary habit of pre-school children influences upon direction of this changes, specially. So, this study was planned to analyst the dietary pattern of pre-school children. A survey was carried out for 3 days of 28 pre-school children with a mean age of 4 years and 3 months. Each child's matter wrote dietary pattern and kinds of food as staple, subsidiary and snack. The results showed that; (1) the average meal frequency a day was 3.1 and interval between meal was 5.1 hours (for breakfast to lunch & lunch to supper) and 12.6 hours (for supper to breakfast), (2) there were 27 different kinds of foods as staple and cereal products consumed the most among those, and 82 different kinds of foods as subsidiary and KIMCHI products were eaten the most rating, (3) the average snack frequency a day was 5.0. There were 76 different kinds of foods as snack, among them cold drink was the best. The present observation suggested that pre-school children had a tendency to take meat regularly, but snack very irregularly, and kinds of foods taken as staple, subsidiary and snack didn't keep the nutritional balance. Parent's concern about dietary behavior of their children is demanded more than ever.