Study of Dietary Behaviors and Snack Intake Patterns by Weight of Middle School Students in Incheon

Abstract We surveyed 553 middle school students living in Incheon using questionnaires to compare their food behaviors andsnack intake patterns according to weight groups based on BMI. Mean BMI was 20.3 for males and 19.6 for females. Therate of underweight, normalweight and overweight students was 33.3, 51.7, and 15.0%, respectively. Compared to theother two groups, the overweight students perceived their body shape more accurately (p<0.01). Regarding the reasons forskipping dinner, the most frequent answer by the underweight students was ‘because of snacks’, while that of the overweightstudents was ‘to lose weight’ (p<0.01). The normalweight students were found to eat a Korean traditional type breakfastmore frequently than the other weight groups (p<0.05). The overweight female group was more likely to overeathabitually,whereas the normalweight and underweight groups tended to overeat when they were under stress (p<0.05). As for theamount of the snack intake, the overweight male students replied that they eat quite a lot of snacks. As a conclusion, theproblems found in the underweight group were unbalanced diet and the disturbance of regular meal patterns due toinappropriate snack intake. The problems shown in the overweight group were overeating due to habit or stress, fast eatingspeed and large amount of snack intake.Key Words: dietary behavior, snack intake pattern, BMI, adolescent