청주지역 영유아의 이유 실태 및 영유아 어머니의 이유식 광고에 대한 신뢰도

Weaning Practices of Infants and Their Mothers" Reliability on Advertisements of Commercial Weaning Foods in Cheongju Area

  A survey was carried out to investigate the weaning practices of infants and their mothers" reliability on advertisements of weaning foods. Subjects included 120 mothers who visited public health centers in Cheongju city between Jan. 24th and Feb. 14th in 2003 and had babies aged under 24 months, and were interviewed using a questionnaire. The results were as follows: In the start time of weaning, half of subjects(50.0%) answered that they began when their babies were three or four months old, and in the cessation time, 34,5% of respondents stopped weaning when their ages were 12 or 13 months. In the kinds of weaning foods, 42.6% of subjects answered that they fed commercial formula, and 40.9%, home made foods, and 16.5%, both of them. In the reason of feeding commercial formula, 48,3% replied because of "convenient", and 25.0%, "more nutritious than home-made. Majority of subjects who used commercial weaning foods answered that they satisfied with that foods, and the main reason why they selected the specific brand was "high credit of manufacturer". Mean score of reliability on advertisements showed 2.05-3.02(full score 4.00) in five categories of advertisement messages. 68.1% of the subjects answered that they met some over-exaggerated advertisements. In the characteristics of the group according to the degree of reliability on advertisement, those, who had high reliability, used commercial weaning foods more frequently, and accepted advertisements more positively compared to those who had low reliability. Therefore, the education for women who consume weaning foods should be needed, and monitoring and supervision over baby food advertisements are required to protect consumers from the adverse effect of exaggerated advertising.