Public Health Nutrition Policies and the Role of the Government: International Examples and the Need for Action in the Republic of Korea

Engellhardt, Katrin,Joung, Hyojee The Korean Nutrition Society 2005 Nutritional Sciences Vol.8 No.1

Many of the non-communicable diseases, which are now the major causes of death and disability worldwide, can be linked to our lifestyles, and thus to what eat The life-style related risk factors are - to a great extent - preventable. Public health nutrition (PHN) policies are means through which govemments can have an enornous impact on the reduction of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer and cardiovascular disease, by creating and supporting environments which enable healthier food choices and which are conducive to healthy nutrition behavior. More and more countries are developing nutrition policies. Nutrition policies are tools through which governments can intervene and control nutrition-related concerns throughout all levels of society. The need for more concerted action in the Republic of Korea is demonstrated, by showing the lack of priority for nutrition issues. Four recommendations for action are made; the first recommendation places emphasis on the need to implement a structure at the political level, through which nutrition concerns can be addressed, such as a nutrition unit within the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The second recommendation stresses the need for a strong nutrition advocacy strategy, to raise the awareness of the gains that can be achieved by promoting healthy nutrition. The third recommendation calls for more vigorous regulations and stricter enforcement of food and nutrition advertisement, and the fourth recommendation emphasizes the need for a settings-bsed approach to nutrition interventions. Acknowledging the developments that have already occurred in Korea, public health nutrition has yet to become a priority on the agenda of policy makers in Korea.

HOW NUTRITION-FACT INFORMATION INFLUENCES ONLINE FOOD SALES

Peng Zou,Jingwen Liu,Yixin Li 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

Introduction Online shopping has become an important part of people’s daily lives. The very nature of online shopping makes it unlikely for consumers to examine products with their senses (e.g., touch, smell) as they can do in offline stores. The consumer obtains information from a variety of online sources (sellers, other buyers, and third parties) to assess a product and make a purchase decision. This variety of online information (e.g., product description, reviews and ratings) informs and persuades consumers. While sellers’ decisions comprise most information displayed on their product’s website, other information is shown because consumers have a moral, ethical, and legal “right” to know (e.g., ingredients, weight, size) (Jacoby, Speller, & Berning, 1974). Regarding the latter information, some countries (e.g., the U.S., China, Canada, the EU and India) have regulations that require pre-packaged food manufacturers to provide a nutrition-fact label and claims displaying standardized information on product packaging (Health Canada, 2010). We ask the following question to public policy makers and marketers: Should online pre-packaged food shops also need to present nutrition facts? There are two perspectives one might adopt regarding the array of information confronting online shoppers. The first perspective deals with human information processing. This position maintains that humans’ ability to assimilate and process information has finite limits during any given unit of time, and that once these limits are surpassed, behavior tends to become confused and dysfunctional (Miller, 1956; Driver & Streufert, 1969). Conceivably, such information overload might also occur in online shopping. Online shoppers often make their selections from a range of products, each with an array of information. Moreover, they make such purchase decisions within a relatively short time period. An alternative perspective is that nutrition-fact information provides key cues for consumers to assess product quality in the online marketplace. Cues can be categorized as extrinsic or intrinsic to the product (Maheswaran & Chaiken, 1991; Anderson, 1981). Extrinsic cues are product-related attributes that can be altered whereas intrinsic cues are inherent to the product itself (e.g., ingredients) and cannot be easily altered (Rao & Monroe, 1988; Purohit & Srivastava, 2001). An online shopper's evaluation of a product is based upon both intrinsic and extrinsic cues. In the online shopping environment, few intrinsic cues are available to consumers and the disclosure of nutrition facts (an intrinsic product feature) can help to fill this gap. Theoretical Development The understanding of how nutrition information presentation influences online food sales is a substantial topic for both industry and academia. With the convenience of online shopping, the potential for food producers and retail stores to take their products online is enormous. eMarketer (2014) reports that online food and beverage purchases increased 15.2% in U.S. retail ecommerce sales, and that this trend will remain consistent. Online food shopping is extremely popular in China, with 92% of consumers purchasing food or beverages at least once a month (Weber Shandwick, 2014). Moreover, eMarketer (2016) reports that by 2020, one-fourth of China's online purchases will be made directly from foreign websites or from third-party platforms. Thus, it is important for other countries to learn about the Chinese market. Among these potential issues, whether nutrition-fact information affects consumer purchase decisions in the online shopping context remains unexplored. Nutrition-fact labels have proven to be useful cues for consumer purchasing decision in offline conditions (Shah, Bettman, Ubel, Keller, & Edell, 2014). However, researchers have been unable to determine the effects of nutrition information in online conditions with network virtualization (Mavlanova, Benbunan-Fich, & Koufaris, 2012) and information multiplicity. In addition, the nutrition information disclosed by online sellers may cue consumers to acquire healthy food. Previous research has found that when information pertaining to a food’s nutritional content is provided, less-healthy food tastes better (Raghunathan, Naylor, & Hoyer, 2006). This literature raises the issue of whether nutrition information is more effective for healthy or unhealthy products. In summary, we investigate the effect of nutrition-fact information on online food shopping. The research questions address: (1) whether and how nutrition-fact information influences food sales in online conditions; (2) how nutrition-fact information interacts with other online extrinsic cues (i.e., word of mouth and historical sales); and (3) whether nutrition-fact information is more effective for healthy or unhealthy products. Research Design We then address these issues using panel data collected from Taobao.com (the largest online shopping platform in China). We selected 45 days as our study period, and the sample comprised 273 sellers. In addition, we conduct an experiment using an eye-tracking system to test the necessity and helpfulness of nutrition-fact information. Results and Conclusion The results show that the nutrition-fact information has a significant impact on sales. More specifically, consumers are more likely to choose sellers with the nutrition-fact information, and the healthy (unhealthy) food with nutrition-fact information tends to attract more (fewer) purchase. In addition, our results reveal some interesting interactions between nutrition-fact information and other cues. Specifically, WOM and historical sales strengthen the sales impact of nutrition-fact information. Our eye-tracking experiment leads to several interesting results. First, consumers pay attention to nutrition-fact information and spend considerable time reading it. Second, a long fixation length on nutrition-fact information would reasonably increase sales. This study makes several academic contributions. First, we extend the topic of nutrition information to an e-commerce context. Second, this is one of the first studies to examine the role of nutrition-fact information from an experimental perspective. Third, we supplement the findings of previous studies on the role of food type. This study also provides several practical implications. First, governments could require online sellers to reveal nutrition information in a truthful and detailed manner at the point of sale. In addition, labeling policies not only increase nutrition awareness and protect consumers, but they can also offer a profitable path for marketers. Second, sellers should design nutrition information and other cues strategies jointly. Third, compared with unhealthy food, nutrition-fact information is more effective for the purchase of healthy food. Sellers might be encouraged by this trend and consider more strategies to display nutrition-fact information on healthy food.

어린이집 교사들의 영양지식과 영양교육에 대한 인식 조사연구

박금미 대한지역사회영양학회 2005 대한지역사회영양학회지 Vol.10 No.6

This study was aimed at knowing the recognition of teachers’ nutrition knowledge and nutrition education at day-care centers in Seong-nam. Teachers were all female, most of whom were in the 20, and their careers were less than 3 years. And 76.2% of the teachers graduated from high school and junior college. The score of the nutrition knowledge was average 14.3 ± 2.2 (out of 20). It shows that they are lack of general information of nutrition. As the teachers had higher education, they scored higher nutrition knowledge levels (p < 0.01). It also says that there was meaningful interrelationship between the nutrition knowledge and the number of children they had (p < 0.05). 93% of the teachers said that nutrition education should be given when children are three years old, at least and most of the teachers thought that nutrition education is necessary and should be taught in a separate course. 50.4% of the teachers thought that nutrition education for early childhood should be taught by a nutritionist, but 35.2% of them thought that the teachers themselves should be in charge of it. About 60% of the teachers thought that ‘Cooking Activity for Early Childhood’ course should be established and it is desirable that the nutrition education should be in the area of cooking activity for childhood at daycare centers. The teachers thought that dietary habit is the most important subject in nutrition education and they got more information from the internet rather than in the class related to nutrition. (Korean J Community Nutrition 10(6): 920 ~ 929, 2005)

Nutrition Policies in the Republic of Korea : Expert Opinions and Recommendations

Engelhardt Katrin,Joung Hyojee Korean Society of Community Nutrition 2005 Journal of community nutrition Vol.7 No.4

Considering the increasing global burden of disease attributable to nutrition, the demand for national nutrition policies is growing stronger and stronger. The Republic of Korea is beginning to respond to this growing demand and there have been numerous recent achievements in the area of nutrition. The purpose of this paper is two fold. In the first part of the paper, an overview is provided about existing nutrition action in Korea. In the second part, information is elicited from Korean experts in the field of public health and nutrition. A structured questionnaire was sent directly to renowned Korean experts and was disseminated through the list serve of the Korean Nutrition Society. It asked about existing nutrition related policies, obstacles to nutrition policies in Korea, which professions are 'responsible' for the prevention of nutrition-related diseases and for example about existing nutrition programs within settings. Twenty-two questionnaires were returned. Based on the results, the following actions were considered crucial to develop and implement a nutrition policy in Korea: having a clear advocacy strategy for nutrition to raise awareness about the importance of nutrition, increase transparency of nutrition-related action and make the information easily accessible for all stakeholders, ensure the enforcement of regulations regarding misleading and incorrect food advertisements, strengthening the (public health) nutrition workforce, strengthen the settings-based approach and build and maintain partnerships, and last not least: educate and empower the citizens and ensure that healthy choices are 'easy choices'! Acknowledging the past and ongoing efforts in Korea, it is pivotal that the nutrition workforce grows stronger and the voice of nutritionists even louder, in order to promote and ensure the health and quality of life of the country's citizens. (J Community Nutrition 7(4) : $175\∼183$, 2005)

건강관심도에 따른 외식업체 메뉴의 영양 표시 인지도

유진아 ( Jin A Yoo ),정희선 ( Hee Sun Jeong ) 한국식품영양학회 2011 韓國食品營養學會誌 Vol.24 No.3

This study was performed to investigate the level and recognition and interest in nutrition labeling in restaurants according to consumer interest levels in health and to suggest its application to restaurant lunches. By considering various statistics and data on the frequency of reasons for dining-out, this study examined worker restaurant lunches and investigated the level of recognition of interest in nutrition labeling, the type of nutrition information that is of interest and the preferred format of labeling according to the level of interest in health. According to the results, while the frequency of dining-out by workers was high, their consideration for health and nutrition labeling in restaurants was low. However, a high percentage of consumers responded that nutrition labeling was a customer right and necessary to improve the quality of menu items as well as public health. Therefore, active promotion of nutrition labeling in the dining industry is necessary. Interest levels in additives, product origin and menu ingredients indicated in restaurant menus were higher than for nutritional information such as nutrients and calories. When the preferred format for providing nutrition information was investigated, consumers preferred information written on a menu board, and they wanted to broaden the range of information included in nutrition labeling for menu items beyond calories and nutritional facts. Based on these results, recognition of nutrition labeling in restaurants was found to below and the interest level in health was also lower than expected. However, most consumers responded that nutrition labeling was helpful in choosing menu items can be a tool for nutrition education and can play a role in improving the recognition of nutrition. Therefore, active promotion of nutrition labeling by the dining industry is necessary.

Effect of nutrition education received by teachers on primary school students’ nutrition knowledge

Cemre Elmas,Perihan Arslan 한국영양학회 2020 Nutrition Research and Practice Vol.14 No.5

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of nutrition education received by fourth- and fifth-grade teachers in state schools in Famagusta, Northern Cyprus, on their students. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The aim of this study is to assess the effect of nutrition education received by fourth- and fifth-grade teachers (n = 27) in state schools in Famagusta on their students. Participants (n = 718) were selected through a regional pilot scheme. The teachers were instructed on nutrition by the researcher and provided with a researcher-prepared nutrition education book “I Am Learning about Healthy Nutrition”. Before receiving their nutrition education, the teachers were pretested to assess their baseline nutrition knowledge. Following receipt of their nutrition education, a posttest, which included the same questions as those in the pretest, was administered to the teachers to assess the effectiveness of the training session. Similarly, students were asked pretest researcher-prepared questions to evaluate their baseline nutrition knowledge level. The teachers were then given a period of three to four weeks to instruct the students in nutrition education. Following this instructional period, a posttest that included the same questions as those in the pretest was administered to the students. RESULTS: The results showed that there were significant differences between the pre- and posttest scores of both teachers and students; in both groups, the nutrition knowledge level increased (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: These results show that the provision of nutrition education training to teachers positively affected the nutrition knowledge level of both teachers and students.

Historical background and development of applied nutrition and community nutrition in Korea

Mo, Su-Mi The Korean Nutrition Society 2007 Nutrition Research and Practice Vol.1 No.1

This paper overviews the historical background and development of applied nutrition and community nutrition in Korea. The nutrition studies in the early years focused on animal experiments, human metabolism, and food analysis and therefore were limited to classrooms and research laboratories in universities without spreading into the lives of people. Korean specialists trained through the UN International Course of Applied Nutrition initiated the Applied Nutrition Program (ANP) in Korea in the 1960s. The ANP in Korea was effectively implemented until 1986 with support from UNICEF, FAO, and WHO as a national project to improve the nutrition and health of rural residents. With economic development and urbanization in Korea, the rural-focusing ANP was re-born to a more extended version with the name of "Community Nutrition", targeting the nutrition and health of the entire Korean population. Scholarly associations including the Korean Society of Community Nutrition established in 1995 have significantly contributed to the development of Community Nutrition in Korea and are expected to continue to work for a better connection between nutrition and health promotion.

동영상을 활용한 영양교육이 초등학생의 영양지식, 식습관 및 식품기호도에 미치는 영향

김경아(Kyung A Kim),이연경(Yeon Kyung Lee) 대한지역사회영양학회 2010 대한지역사회영양학회지 Vol.15 No.1

The purpose of this study was to conduct nutrition education using animations for the establishment of proper eating habits among elementary school students and to evaluate its effectiveness. The subjects of this study were two classes of fourth grade students in an elementary school located in Daegu-city. There were 29 students in each class. One class, the nutrition-education group, received nutrition education; the other class, the no-education group, did not receive the education. After completing the eight nutrition lessons, the effectiveness of the education was analyzed by measuring changes in the nutrition knowledge, eating habits and food preferences of the nutrition-education group vs. the no-education group. Before nutrition education, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of nutrition knowledge. However, after the nutrition education, the nutrition-education group`s nutrition knowledge was significantly improved, compared to that of the no-education group (p<0.001). Following education, the nutrition-education group`s responses to the eating habit item, I eat fruits every day, were significantly more positive, compared to the responses of the no-education group (p<0.01). However, for the ten food groups listed as food preferences, except for fish and shellfish (p<0.05), there was no significant difference in the responses of the two groups. Following the education, the nutrition-education group showed significantly increased preferences for 12 food items (red beans, mackerels, yellow corvinas, dried laver, kelps, radish, lettuce, pears, kiwi fruits, plums, grapes and sweet drinks made from fermented rice) out of 112 items, compared to the selected preferences of the no-education group. After education, 75.9% of the students in the nutrition-education group indicated changes in their eating habits, and 89.6% of them answered that the nutrition education helped them change their eating habits. The most helpful medium for changing their eating habits was animations (31.0%), followed by songs (20.7%) and lectures (17.2%). As a result of this study, after completing the nutrition education, students in the nutrition-education group showed significant changes in food preferences, and their level of nutrition knowledge was significantly increased. However, their eating habits did not actively change. Therefore, in order to establish proper eating habits, a longer period of consistent education is required, using various educational media and learning methods such as extracurricular activities and discretionary activity programs. (Korean J Community Nutrition 15(1): 50~60, 2010)

중환자실에서의 영양치료

홍석경 대한의사협회 2014 대한의사협회지 Vol.57 No.6

Nutrition therapy is challenging in critically ill patients. Critical illness is associated with a state of catabolic stress, inwhich stress hormones and inflammatory mediators are activated, resulting in proteolysis. The aim of nutrition therapyin critically ill patients is to preserve lean body mass, to preserve immune function, and to avoid metabolic complications. Enteral nutrition is preferred over parenteral nutrition. Enteral nutrition should be initiated within 24 to48 hours ofintensive care unit admission. However, enteral nutrition should be withheld until the patient is fully resuscitated. Ifenteral nutrition is not feasible within several days, supplementary parenteral nutrition is necessary. In the acute phase,energy requirements should not be over 20 to 25 kcal/kg/d, and protein should be supplemented in the range of 1.2 to2.0 g/kg/day. Monitoring tolerance is very important in critically ill patients with artificial nutrition to avoid complications. Immunonutrition such as glutamine and omega-3 fatty acid is helpful to modulate effects on the immune systemin critically ill patients. Implementation of a feeding protocol and the involvement of a nutrition support team cansystemize nutrition therapy. Together, these steps will hopefully enable the integration of evidence-based guidelines intopractice, leading to improvements in nutrition performance so that patients’ chances of a good outcome are optimized.

HOW CHINESE CONSUMERS RESPONSE TO FOOD NUTRITION CLAIM

Jingwen Liu,Peng Zou,Qingqing Lu 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

With increasing income and education, requirements to product quality are getting higher in China. Specifically, people tend to nutrition and health now. Food safety has attracted increasing attention due to its importance. The nutrition claims on packaging became one of the most important standards to decide whether to buy. A great deal of research has focused on consumer responses (e.g., Hieke and Taylor 2012; Parker & Lehmann 2014; Shah et al. 2014) to the influx of product information to markets. Topics of research included the impact on consumers’ beliefs with regards to products (Ford et al. 2005), purchasing behavior (Nikolova and Inman 2015), and information processing behavior (Moorman 1990). The diversity of consumer responses is based on consumer differences (Moorman 1990), and health- and nutrition-related (HNR) claims (Choi et al. 2013). Although a great deal of research has addressed the influence of product information disclosure on the market, these studies have focused almost exclusively on developed economies. Going forward it is very likely that emerging markets will play a more important part in corporate strategic planning, as opposed to something considered after making plans for long developed markets. Thus, the impact of market information is likely to matter more and more to those global marketers operating in emerging markets. To fill the research gaps, we investigated how the existence and forms of nutrition claims affect the purchase intention of consumers in China. We explore the moderating role of consumer’s nutrition knowledge. We combine simulation experiment and questionnaire and design two experiments: Experiment 1 is about the existence of nutrition claims, we want to know how the existence of nutrition claims affects the purchase intention of consumers. Experiment 2 which is 2(health claims Vs function claims)×2 (promotion Vs prevention) test is to find out how the claim presentation forms impact the purchase intention of consumers. In experiment 1, we required the subjects to choose one setting randomly and fill in the questionnaires according to their choices. We collected 315 effective questionnaires of experiment 1and 156 effective questionnaires of experiment 2. The results show that: (1) The existence of nutrition claims affects the purchase intention of consumers. specifically, compared with the product without health claims, consumers tend to choose the one with health claims, and compared with the product without function claims, consumers tend to choose the one with health claims.(2)Nutrition knowledge plays a positively role. Nutrition knowledge can change the effect of the existence of health claims and function claims on purchase intention.(3) Consumer trust only plays a partly moderate role. The consumer trust can increase the effect of the existence of function claims but not health claims on purchase intention.(4)The forms of nutrition claims affect consumers purchase intention. Consumers tend to choose the product with promotion claims more than the one with prevention claims.(5) Nutrition knowledge plays a positively role, it can improve the effect of the forms of health claims on purchase intention. The more nutritional knowledge does consumers comprehend, the more sensitive to the product with promotion claims they are.(6)Consumer trust also plays a positively role. The higher Consumer trust does consumers maintain, the more sensitive to the product with promotion claims they are.