This study was carried out to investigate consciousness level of Health Food intake and analyze factors affecting the awareness of city dwellers in order to help dietary health life, public health policy and health education. This study was conducted by trained surveyers on 1206 city dwellers from Oct. 4, 1989 to Oct. 24, 1989. The results are summarized as follows:
1. General characteristics of respondents were the following
Numbers of respondents: Seoul 417, Pusan 366, Taegu 423 respectively.
There were more males than females; the age groups and their percentages of respondents were (41.3%), 40-49(24.9%), and 50-59(18.4%).
2. Education levels of the subject were the following
College graduates 48.8%, high school graduate 30.1%, and middle graduate 11.7%.
Birthplaces of respondents were big city dweller 29.6%, rural area 28.496, and suburb area
19.996.
Vocations of the respondents were student 27.4%, sales and service 15.1%, and expert skilled job 9.0%.
Religion of the subjects was no religion 37.3%, Buddism 33.6%, Christianity 16.7%, and Roman Catholicism 12.4%.
Financial level of the respondents is middle class 62.7%, low class 23.9% and upper class 14.4%. Marital status of the subjects is married 59.2%, and unmarried 38.6%. 3. Fifty-two percent of the respondents had previously taken health foods, and, 53.2% of them
were male.
Effectiveness of in taking the Health Food
49.5% of the respondents said ineffective, and 23.8% believed it to be effective. Interestingly, there was a tendency for younger respondents to answer no good.
Well educated said that it was no good (College graduates 16.0%), but middle school graduates
(27.6%) and labourers(36.4%) said that it was effective.
Sales and service (18.2%), expert skill job (13.3%) said that it was ineffective. 4. The order of most favorite health food
ginseng radix (21.0%), vegatables(1&7%), cervi cornu parvum(15.5%), bosin tang(6.7%), yungji mushroom(6.5%), aloe(5.6%), o-gol gae, polen, gae soju, royal jelly. Black goat, snake, ursi fel, Noru rod deer blood and so on.
5. Why do they taking health food;
"It seems good for health"(36.3%), "Good for nutrition"(17.3%), "Other´s recommendation" (16.2%), "Non-contaminated food"(10.4%) and the rest said it negative (212%). The older respondents took it just for health, but the younger subjects took it for better nutrition.
Younger subjects and Big city dwellers showed negative attitudes to the health food.
Low educated people (elementary school graduated 55.6%, middle school graduated 35.0%), favored it for health reasons but well educated people did not. Expert skilled job and students showed negative took and 50.0% of the school staff and 48.1% of the white-collar workers the health foods just for health.
6. Attitudes toward the effectiveness of health food-b-´,
Taegu area people showed low (52.5%) in the foods effectiveness and males said that it was effective and good, but females did not. And labourers favored it more than others. 7. Variables which influence the in taking of health foods;
Age(B=2208) was the highest, and then in the order of sex, birth place, religion, vocation. etc. And it showed significantly on the level of 1%, but its explanatory was about 9%.
8. Variables which influence the awareness of health foods´ effectiveness: Age(B=.1511) was the highest, and then in the odder of sex, religion, marriage etc. It showed significance on the level of 1% but its explanatory is about 6.4%
As detailed above, poorly educated, factory workers, labourers and middle aged who have a strong desire to be healthy tend to take health foods only for health. So health education should be provided for them.
Especially young generations, people in their twenties and thirties who preserve their health by a good balanced diet, overestimate the effectiveness of the health foods. Hence the cases of taking health foods and expensive foreign foods are increasingly being favored by them.
Therefore, health program should be developed and balanced dietary should be established to provide correct information in the field of public health policies.
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