Abstract
A questionnaire survey was conducted annually on the meal times during the first 3 days of New Year for the period 1986-1995. A total of 1, 435 questionnaires to female college students were returned during the 10-year period, and the data were subjected to a time-series analysis.
The ratio of persons eating per responder on each hour were analyzed by the Bayesian smoothing method to identify meal-time trends on a yearly and daily basis.
The meal time on the first day indicated 2 peaks at about 10 A.M. and 7 P.M., and on the second and the third days showed 3 peaks at 9 A.M., 12 A.M. and 7 P.M. These peaks tended to become less prominent year by year.
Special New Year dishes were often eaten at about 10 A.M. on the first day, indicating a different dietary habit in food type and timing from the normal daily one. By the third day, however, the meal time and food type had almost returned to the daily dietary habit. The trend over 10 years moved closer to the daily dietary habit.
