Abstract
We conducted an awareness survey on 720 university students living in boarding houses/apartments regarding their awareness of dietary habits and health between June and August, 1987. The results were statistically cross-analyzed for significance by the chi-square test between all the items. The results are as follows.
1) The item which respondents were most concerned about was “nutritional balance” at 42.8%. Female students were more concerned than males about the nutritional balance (p<0.01), but males were more concerned about food costs than females (p<0.01).
2) Their evaluation of current dietary life ranged from “not so good” at 40.3% to “average” at 37.0%. More freshmen evaluated their dietary life “good” than sophomores and seniors (p<0.05).
3) Problems in dietary life encountered by the respondents were “nutritional unbalance” (60.0%), “irregular meal hours” (39.6%), “biased diet” (27.4%), and “food costs” (26.1%). Males were more concerned than females about “smoking” (p<0.001), “alcohol intake” (p<0.01), and “food costs” (p<0.05). There were significant regional differences for the items of “nutritional balance”, “food cost”, “too much smoking”, “biased diet”, “skipping meals”, and “no problems”.
4) Forty eight % of respondents indicated their willingness to improve their dietary life.
5) As for their health, 51.6% answered they were “easily fatigued”, and 38.6% had “stiff shoulders”. More females answered they were “easily constipated” and “had irregular bowel movements” (p<0.001), “dizziness” (p<0.001), and “stiff shoulders” (p<0.05). There were significant regional differences for items such as “unable to sleep”, “easily constipated” and “pains in the body”.
