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The study aimed to analyse the nutritional quality of self-proposed or prescribed weight-loss diets shared by female Korean adolescents through a social media platform and identified potential dietary problems.

A total of 317 weight-loss diets, shared by 107 female adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 in April 2019, were collected from three Kakao Open Chat rooms of which the main topic was “weight-loss diet”. The weight-loss diets were converted to daily energy and nutrient intake.

Approximately two-thirds of the subjects were normal or underweight, and more than half of them were limiting energy intake to less than half of the recommended daily amounts. The average daily intake of energy and most nutrients did not meet the standard intake levels. Approximately 20% of the subjects were breakfast skippers, while 8 and 5% were dinner and lunch skippers, respectively. Notably, meal skippers tended to fast longer and have an uneven distribution of daily energy intake per meal. The percentages of energy contribution from macronutrients, particularly carbohydrates, also deviated more from the acceptable range in the meal skippers. The weight-loss diets of the subjects with particularly low daily energy intake were categorised into simplified, unbalanced and nutrient-poor, energy-dense meals. Overall, the nutritional quality of the self-proposed or prescribed weight-loss diets was poor. More effective and proactive educational interventions in school environments should be developed to promote positive eating behaviours in adolescents and free them from their obsession with body image.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt to analyse the nutritional quality of female adolescents' self-proposed or prescribed weight-loss diets.

To gain strategic insights for promoting sustainable food services, especially in a business and industry (B&I) setting, the purpose of this paper is to investigate decisional factors affecting consumers’ patronage intention based on the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) including two additional constructs of perceived quality and personal moral norm.

An online survey was employed. Out of 978 responses, 548 (70 percent) responses which reported to have visited B&I food services more than five times a month on an average were analyzed by using structural equation modeling.

The study results revealed that consumers’ patronage intention toward sustainable B&I food services was well explained by the alternative extended TPB adding a new path from subjective norm to perceived behavioral control. The impact of personal moral norm on consumers’ patronage intention was the highest followed by subjective norm, attitude, and perceived behavioral control.

This study is one of the few attempts to clarify the underlying motives for patronizing sustainable food services. The study results may give insights into the mechanisms of consumers’ patronage intention formation toward sustainable B&I food services and provide useful implications for strategic measures to promote sustainable B&I food services in Korea as well as other countries sharing similar concerns and interests.

This study aimed to explore the association of childhood experience of being forced to eat – where a particular person forced a child to eat a specific food item against one's will – on food consumption, especially vegetables later in young adulthood.

An online questionnaire survey was conducted from 19 to 24 February 2020 with 1,277 young Korean adults in their 20s. A total of 1,226 eligible responses were obtained, wherein 410 (33.4%) responses with forced-eating experiences in childhood were collected. To answer the survey questionnaire, the respondents were asked to recall one of the most memorable forced-eating episodes.

The results showed that forced-eating occurred mostly among lower grades or pre-schoolers, at home or in schools/childcare facilities, and by parents or homeroom teachers. Vegetables were the most common target food for forced-eating. The Forced-Eating-Experienced group with vegetables as the target food tended to have significantly lower preference for and acceptance of vegetables. Furthermore, among this group, those who had displayed unpleasant post-ingestion physical symptoms after forced-eating or refused to eat the target vegetables at all despite forced-eating, showed significantly lower acceptance of vegetables. Additionally, they were also less likely to eat the target vegetable at present, but more likely to agree that their current dietary habits were affected by their childhood experiences of forced-eating.

The study attempted to fill the knowledge gap on the association of negative childhood experiences of forced-eating with food consumption, especially vegetables, later in young adulthood.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nutritional quality of dinnertime meals eaten out of home (OH) vs those eaten at home by male Korean workers.

The study included 1,634 male Korean workers aged between 19 and 64 years among 15,508 individuals who participated in a 24-hour dietary recall through the Sixth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2013 to 2014. The study participants were classified and analyzed according to the place where dinner had been prepared: out-of-home group (OHG) (n=659) and at-home group (AHG) (n=975).

Young male white-collar workers who are unmarried with a higher level of education and income were more likely to eat OH at dinner. The OHG consumed more energy, fat, and sodium, but less carbohydrate at dinner than the AHG. The contribution of dinner to daily energy and macronutrient intakes, except for carbohydrate, was higher in the OHG. Additionally, the study results suggested that the OHG was less likely to consume a traditional Korean meal at dinner. Overall, the nutritional quality of dinnertime meals eaten OH had greater potential to lead to negative effects on nutrition and health.

This study highlights OH eating among male Korean workers as an important arena in which strategies for healthier eating can be deployed when establishing worksite health promotion or related national nutrition policies.

This pilot study is aimed to explore the potential problem of picky eating (PE) among university students majoring in food and nutrition as prospective nutrition professionals.

The current pilot study included a total of 87 South Korean students majoring in food and nutrition. The self-designed Food Bridge program was applied to identify the underlying causes of PE and examine the possibility of overcoming it. The program included planning and practicing stepwise exposures to target foods that were the subject of PE. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and distributive differences between the success and failure groups in the program were analyzed using a chi-squared test.

Vegetables were the most commonly disliked foods (74.7%). About 46% of all students mentioned negative experiences as a reason for food dislikes. Almost half (45%) of these negative experiences were due to external coercion: forced eating (30.0%) and vomiting after forced eating (15.0%). About 66% of the students achieved relatively positive results in overcoming PE. The proportion of failures tended to be higher when the reasons for food dislike included negative experiences.

As the current study implied, students majoring in food and nutrition can be subject to PE. Despite study limitations, this study is meaningful in that it raises concerns over the potential problem of PE and its treatment among prospective nutrition professionals. This study is also expected to serve as a basis for further research on adult PE.

The purpose of this paper is to develop policy recommendations for creating a healthy food environment around convenience stores which has been recently extending beyond the retail to the food retail and even to the foodservice market in South Korea.

This study was based on case studies of evaluating the nutritional quality of lunch box products sold by the Korean big 3 convenience store brands (CU, GS25 and 7-Eleven) as meal replacements. Samples of all lunch box products sold during October 2016 in Asan city, South Korea were collected for nutritional quality evaluation.

The amount of food items in the “Meats/Fish/Eggs/Legume” food group was 2.4 times the recommended intake, while that in the “Vegetables” food group was even less than one serving size. The most frequent cooking method both for the animal- and plant-based food groups was stir-frying. The average calories fell short of the reference value for men but exceeded it for women. The percentage energy contribution from fats exceeded the reference range. The average amounts of protein, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium were higher than recommended.

This study calls attention to the necessity and importance of establishing a healthy food environment around convenience stores, given the ever-growing reliance on these establishments as a go-to spot for a convenient meal. The results may also provide useful insights for developing countries in Asia, which are being spotlighted as the emerging markets for convenience stores.

This paper aims to examine the differential effects of the type of gift (material vs experiential) offered on Snapchat and Instagram (Study 1) and how the impacts of gift type and message type (informational vs emotional) vary by the two different image-sharing social media platform in a business-to-consumer (B2C) gift-giving context (Study 2).

Study 1 used a two (social media: Snapchat vs Instagram) by two (gift type: material vs experiential) between-subject factorial design, whereas Study 2 used a two (social media: Snapchat vs Instagram) by two (gift type: material vs experiential) by two (message type: informational vs emotional) between-subject factorial design. A series of analyses of covariance was conducted to test the suggested hypotheses.

Study 1 demonstrated that the promotion of material gifts was more effective on Snapchat than on Instagram, while the promotion of experiential gifts was more effective on Instagram than on Snapchat. Study 2 showed that the impacts of gift type and message type varied by social media platform. The promotion of an experiential gift with an emotional ad appeal was found to be more effective on Instagram than on Snapchat, while the promotion of a material gift using an informational ad appeal was found to be more effective on Snapchat than on Instagram.

This research used a college student sample for the experiments. However, to extend the generalizability of the results, it is recommended that future experiments be conducted with nonstudent samples. Also, the current research manipulated the two different social media conditions, Snapchat vs Instagram, by enforcing participants to use their social media and then provided experimental stimuli in a different screen from their social media account. If the stimuli were distributed through participants’ real social media account, the external validity of this research could be enhanced. Finally, future research should apply this framework to other countries with different social media platforms to confirm the generalizability of the study’s findings.

This research can thus contribute to the development of new guidelines for planning social media marketing in the business gift-giving context. By leveraging findings that the fit effect of gift types and advertising appeals differs based on social media platform, practitioners can create a more effective social media plan for their advertising campaigns. Given that copywriting and media plans are among the most important and difficult work in the business of advertising, this study’s findings would assist advertising practitioners in planning and executing the most effective advertising campaigns.

The findings of this study provide valuable insights for the development of effective brand promotion strategies for B2C gift-giving via social media.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the government's role in boosting the utilization of intelligent robot by considering government support policies along with various other factors, which are potentially influential. This type of investigation will contribute for developing a domestic robot infrastructure in Korea.

A structural equation model is used to investigate the relation among various factors that have a potential influence on robot utilization. In addition, the Robot Utilization Expectation Index of various user groups is developed. The results obtained from the proposed model are expected to provide important feedback information for productivity innovation at the level of both the individual user and the company.

According to the results, the robot function has the highest direct effect on the Robot Utilization Expectation, but excessive policies implemented simultaneously by the Korean Government are not effective on revitalization of the robot industry. It is interesting to note that government policy has the highest indirect effect on robot utilization expectation. Therefore, it is proposed that the government should act as a mediator and focus on fewer policies rather than enforcing various policies simultaneously by different organizations.

Although, a focused group consisting of those who are knowledgeable about intelligent robots is surveyed, a limitation to the paper lies in analyzing a relatively small data set. An extended survey with a larger data set remains for future study.

The paper includes implications, which contribute towards stimulating the robot industry in Korea.

The proposed model is expected to provide important information for productivity innovation at both the individual user and company levels.

This study aims to explore the relationships among antecedents (i.e. quality) and outcomes (i.e. trust, support, theme awareness and extension effect) of satisfaction at the 2013 Osong Cosmetics & Beauty (C&B) Expo held in Korea.

An onsite survey with self-administered questionnaires was administered for this study. A structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used to analyze the relationships among ten constructs in the research model.

The results indicate that hospitality and product dimensions of quality positively affect satisfaction, satisfaction exerts positive influence on trust and theme awareness, trust performs an important role as a mediator between satisfaction and support and theme awareness significantly mediates satisfaction and extension effect.

This study encourages the Expo’s organizers to manage quality attributes to ensure Expo satisfaction and to consider extension effects of Expo experiences from long-term perspectives. This study also recommends that local governments develop symbolic products with exhibitors to strengthen the association of Expo themes with regions.

The current study highlights the role of quality as an antecedent of satisfaction with the C&B Expo, which has not been well-known despite its crucial role in the industry and the regional economy. It also improves the understanding of the inherent cause–effect relationships among antecedents and outcomes of Expo satisfaction. Therefore, this study provides crucial insights that the C&B Expo could be an effective means to reach target markets and stimulate trust from visitors, which, in turn, would encourage support for the C&B industry and extension effects for C&B products as a whole.

The purpose of this study is to examine similar and/or different perspectives on, and practices of online-learning interaction as projected by the participating educators who are from either Korea or the USA.

In this study, the authors analyzed how college instructors from two countries, Korea and the USA, consider the role of online-learning interaction in their students' learning by interviewing nine instructors from both countries. The authors examined the educators' responses using constructivism and Confucianism as the frame of reference.

The analysis showed that the US instructors tend to focus on learner-to-learner interaction, whereas Korean instructors emphasized teacher-to-learner interaction. Korean instructors perceived a gap between ideal and reality in integrating interaction as a part of online activities in the course.

This study focuses on a cross-national comparison of online-learning interaction between Korea and the USA. Thus, it will provide practical ideas for global or multicultural user experiences on online-learning courses.