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Comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult North Korean Refugees in South Korea and South Koreans

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: North Korean refugees (NKRs) in South Korea are a unique population as they must adapt in a new country with similar cultural traits but different social, political, and economic systems, but little research has been conducted on diet and nutrition in this population. This stu...

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Autores principales: Kim, Ji Yoon, Lee, Soo-Kyung, Kim, Sin Gon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Korean Nutrition Society and the Korean Society of Community Nutrition 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7075740/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32256988
http://dx.doi.org/10.4162/nrp.2020.14.2.134
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author Kim, Ji Yoon
Lee, Soo-Kyung
Kim, Sin Gon
author_facet Kim, Ji Yoon
Lee, Soo-Kyung
Kim, Sin Gon
author_sort Kim, Ji Yoon
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: North Korean refugees (NKRs) in South Korea are a unique population as they must adapt in a new country with similar cultural traits but different social, political, and economic systems, but little research has been conducted on diet and nutrition in this population. This study examined food security, dietary behaviors, and nutrient intakes among adult NKRs living in South Korea and compared them to those of South Koreans. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The subjects were 139 adult NKRs (25 men, 114 women) living in the Seoul metropolitan area, and 417 age- and sex-matched South Korean controls (SKCs; 75 men, 342 women) selected from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). Food security and dietary behaviors (meal skipping, eating-out, meals with family, nutrition education and counseling, and nutrition label knowledge and utilization) were obtained using self-administered questionnaires. Nutrient intakes were assessed by 24-hr recall. The statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS ver. 23.0. RESULTS: In South Korea, food security had improved over the previous 12 months, but remained significantly poorer for NKR women than SKC women. Meal skipping was three times more frequent than for SKCs and eating-out was rare. Average energy intake was 1,509 kcal for NKR men and 1,344 kcal for NKR women, which was lower than those of SKCs (2,412 kcal and 1,789 kcal, respectively). Significantly more NKRs (men 24.0%, women 21.9%) showed simultaneously deficient intake in energy, calcium, iron, vitamin A, and riboflavin than SKCs (men 2.7% (P = 0.003), women 7.0% (P < 0.001)). NKR women had a significantly higher index of nutrient quality (INQ) for some nutrients than SK women. CONCLUSIONS: This study reports significant differences in food security, dietary behaviors, and nutrient intakes between NKRs and SKCs. Generally, NKRs reported lower intakes despite improved food security, but relatively good INQs across nutrients. Further research is needed to understand processes of food choice and consumption among NKRs to provide appropriate support aimed at improving diets.
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spelling pubmed-70757402020-04-01 Comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult North Korean Refugees in South Korea and South Koreans Kim, Ji Yoon Lee, Soo-Kyung Kim, Sin Gon Nutr Res Pract Original Research BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: North Korean refugees (NKRs) in South Korea are a unique population as they must adapt in a new country with similar cultural traits but different social, political, and economic systems, but little research has been conducted on diet and nutrition in this population. This study examined food security, dietary behaviors, and nutrient intakes among adult NKRs living in South Korea and compared them to those of South Koreans. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The subjects were 139 adult NKRs (25 men, 114 women) living in the Seoul metropolitan area, and 417 age- and sex-matched South Korean controls (SKCs; 75 men, 342 women) selected from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). Food security and dietary behaviors (meal skipping, eating-out, meals with family, nutrition education and counseling, and nutrition label knowledge and utilization) were obtained using self-administered questionnaires. Nutrient intakes were assessed by 24-hr recall. The statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS ver. 23.0. RESULTS: In South Korea, food security had improved over the previous 12 months, but remained significantly poorer for NKR women than SKC women. Meal skipping was three times more frequent than for SKCs and eating-out was rare. Average energy intake was 1,509 kcal for NKR men and 1,344 kcal for NKR women, which was lower than those of SKCs (2,412 kcal and 1,789 kcal, respectively). Significantly more NKRs (men 24.0%, women 21.9%) showed simultaneously deficient intake in energy, calcium, iron, vitamin A, and riboflavin than SKCs (men 2.7% (P = 0.003), women 7.0% (P < 0.001)). NKR women had a significantly higher index of nutrient quality (INQ) for some nutrients than SK women. CONCLUSIONS: This study reports significant differences in food security, dietary behaviors, and nutrient intakes between NKRs and SKCs. Generally, NKRs reported lower intakes despite improved food security, but relatively good INQs across nutrients. Further research is needed to understand processes of food choice and consumption among NKRs to provide appropriate support aimed at improving diets. The Korean Nutrition Society and the Korean Society of Community Nutrition 2020-04 2020-03-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7075740/ /pubmed/32256988 http://dx.doi.org/10.4162/nrp.2020.14.2.134 Text en ©2020 The Korean Nutrition Society and the Korean Society of Community Nutrition http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Research
Kim, Ji Yoon
Lee, Soo-Kyung
Kim, Sin Gon
Comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult North Korean Refugees in South Korea and South Koreans
title Comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult North Korean Refugees in South Korea and South Koreans
title_full Comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult North Korean Refugees in South Korea and South Koreans
title_fullStr Comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult North Korean Refugees in South Korea and South Koreans
title_full_unstemmed Comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult North Korean Refugees in South Korea and South Koreans
title_short Comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult North Korean Refugees in South Korea and South Koreans
title_sort comparisons of food security, dietary behaviors and nutrient intakes between adult north korean refugees in south korea and south koreans
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7075740/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32256988
http://dx.doi.org/10.4162/nrp.2020.14.2.134
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