Background: There is a substantial gap in the eating behaviors between the sexes. We aimed to analyze the predictors of eating behaviors by sex in the young adult population.
Methods: We used the data of the sixth and seventh Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency last 2013-2018. Data from 2,502 women and 2,101 men aged 19-29 yr were included in the analysis using frequency, percentage, x 2-test, and multiple logistic regression.
Results: Education (0.612, CI=0.465∼0.805), economic status (2.104, CI=1.435-3.086), marital status (3.162, CI=2.356∼4.243), and household structure (0.403, CI=0.208∼0.782) were identified to predict the frequency of dining-out in women, while marital status (0.302, CI=0.121∼0.749), economic activity (1.969, CI=1.483∼2.613), and household structure (0.243, CI=0.137∼0.432) predicted dining-out frequency in men. The current smoking status predicted most eating behaviors, including breakfast skipping frequency (1.864, CI=1.318∼2.637), use of supplements (2.062, CI=1.439∼2.953), and use of nutrition labels (1.545, 1.084∼2.204) for men. Meanwhile, nutrition labeling was used less in both men (0.550, CI=0.343∼0.882) and women (0.646, CI=0.473∼0.882) who subjective body recognition as obesity.
Conclusion: The factors that primarily predicted the frequency of dining out in young women and the behavior of breakfast skipping, use of nutrition labels, and frequency of dining-out in men can be used as foundational data for developing sex-specific intervention programs to improve eating behaviors.
Keywords: Behavior; Eating; Korea; Sex; Young adult.
Copyright © 2022 Chae et al. Published by Tehran University of Medical Sciences.