Comparison of Processed Food Intake by Allowance Level in College Students in Chungnam

ABSTRACT Diet is closely related to an economic level, but few studies have reported on the relationship between the economic level and eating habits, especially in college students. Therefore, this study was conducted to clarify differences in eating habits with a focus on processed foods according to allowance level in college students. This study was a cross-sectional survey of 500 college students using a questionnaire. The questionnaire con-sisted of general characteristics, eating behaviors, purchase of processed foods, and preference and intake fre-quency of processed foods. All subjects were classified based on monthly allowance: less than ￦300,000 (n=149), ￦300,000∼400,000 (n=177), and more than ￦400,000 (n=124). All survey results were com-paratively analyzed among the spending money groups. As the level of spending money of the subjects in-creased, the rate of skipping meals, eating out, and unbalanced diet increased (P＜0.05). The reason for con-suming processed foods was because they are easy to prepare. The factor considered the most when buying processed foods was price. However, these results showed no significant difference according to level of spending money. As spending money increased preference for retort, convenience, canned, and bottled foods significantly increased. Intake frequency of dairy products was lower, and the frequency of processed foods was significantly higher with more spending money. This study found that a higher level of monthly allow-ance in college students, was associated with higher rate of skipping meals, eating out, and unbalanced diet, and the preference and intake frequency of processed foods were also high. These results suggest that spend-ing money level in college students, as an economic indicator, is relevant to intake of processed foods.