학교급식에서 채식의 날 운영에 대한 찬반에 따른 중학생의 채소 메뉴 기호도 및 채식의 날 인식

Students’ Menu Preferences and Perceptions of Vegetarian Day in Middle School Lunches

The aim of this study was to examine adolescents’ awareness of Vegetarian Day (VD), their menu preferences, and their perceptions of VD in school lunches. The subjects were 577 students attending a middle school located in Gyeonggi do. The self-administered questionnaire, conducted from December 20, 2014, to January 7, 2015, consisted of general characteristics, menu preferences, and perceptions of vegetarian diet and VD. Survey data were compared between two groups according to whether students wanted VD (362 want, 215 do not want). As many as 15.3% of students answered that they were not aware of VD in their school lunches. Without significant differences between groups, only 62.9% of the subjects answered that they were encouraged to eat more vegetables at home and 10.1% answered that their parents were vegetarian. More of those in the “do notwant VD” group answered that they disliked to a great extent or tended to dislike VD menus compared with students in the “want VD” group (51.6% vs. 7.7%, respectively, p<0.01) and answered with a higher preference for a baked menu and a lower preference for namul (p<0.05). Almost half of the students in the “do not want VD” group answered that namul was their least preferred menu compared with 34.9% of their counterparts (p<0.05). There was no significant difference between the groups in their perception of the most important advantage of eating a vegetarian diet;however, the best results for VD were different between groups, namely, more students in the “do not want VD” group answered that VD helps preserve the environment and save animal lives, whereas their counterparts answered that VD helps people become more aware of nutritional aspects and various tastes (p<0.05). Reasons for not wanting VD (33.5% for “nothing desirable to eat on VD” and 26.0% for “usually don’t dislike vegetarian diet but don’t like the menu on VD”) suggested that developing recipes and menus may improve students’ satisfaction with VD menus.