This study examines the influential factors that form the ideal dietary attitude of an undergraduat e majoring in nutrition. The participants were 156 female college students (78 first-year students and 78 third-year students) studying to be dietitians. We first asked them 85 questions about their views on ideal diet ary habits and attitudes. Four factors based on 24 questions clearly emerged from a factor analysis of this questi onnaire; they were “eating satisfaction”, “food culture”, “nutrition” and “cooking”. We confirmed the reliability issues by Cronbach's alpha and test-retest. We also surveyed the same students by using the KC-Food Choice Questio nnaire. Several correlations were found in both questionnaires:“eating satisfaction” was correlated with“mood” and “sensory appeal”;“nutrition” was linked to “health” and “weight control”;“food culture” was correlat ed with “natural content”; and “cooking” was related to both “mood” and “convenience”. By comparing the score for the four factors between the first-year and third-year students, the “nutrition” score was found to be higher among the first-year students, whereas the “food culture” score was higher among the thi rd-year students. In addition, the students who had the strongest desire to become dietitians had a high score for “nutrition”. We suggest that understanding eating behavior such as the factors that form ideal dietary attitudes among students majoring in nutrition is important for their education.
