초등학교 고학년생 어머니의 자녀의 성장에 대한 인식 및 성장 지원 식생활 관리 행동

Perception of Child Growth and Dietary Management Behavior to Support Growth among Mothers with Children in the Upper Grades in Elementary School

This study set out to investigate mothers of fifth graders in the Cheongju area for their perceptions of child growth, dietary management behavior, and other actions to support growth, as well as gather basic data for their nutrition education in future. The subjects include 211 mothers who were surveyed for five days from June 22 to 26, 2011. As for their perceptions of child growth, a high percentage of them had such child growth-related worries as "small height"(38.9%) and "obesity"(25.1%). As many as 81.5% of them showed "very much interest" in child's height. The highest percentage of them mentioned "dietary life"(63.1%) as a factor of height growth. As for the time of menarche, 98.1% answered "the later, the better" because they believed "the later menarche is, the taller the girl will be." The mothers were also asked what factors they considered first when purchasing foods, and 53.5% and 26.1% said "nutrition" and "food safety," respectively. As for the foods they would restrict for height growth, "fast foods"(57.8%) came first, being followed by 'processed foods'(32.7%), 'high fat foods'(28.9%), and 'eggs'(8.5%) in the order. In order to facilitate the height growth of their children, 14.2% of the mothers gave functional health foods to their children; 16.2% visited a growth clinic with their children; and 24.2% had their children take Chinese herb medicine. In an attempt to postpone menarche, 4.8% had their girls take Chinese herb medicine, while 1.9% put them through hormone therapy. Balanced nutrition is the most important for the growth and health of children, therefore it is required to provide parents with nutrition education for the right dietary management.