Supplements Use and Health-related Practices, Nutrition Risk Factor, Nutritional Knowledge in Korean Middle-Aged and Elderly

초록

The purpose of this study was to investigate the patterns of supplements use by health-related practices, nutritional risk factor, health consciousness, nutritional knowledge and food habits. Subjects were 2188 non-institutionalized adults aged over 50 and elderly(male 765, female 1423), and data was collected by in-person interviews. A nationwide survey was conducted in metropolitan(6 cities) and middle-sized city(8 cities) area of Korea from October in 2000 to December in 2000. Different category of supplements were used by 29.8% of the subjects. The higher concern about nutritional risk factor and nutritional knowledge, the higher use of herb and Chinese medicine was. On the other hand, health consciousness appeared lower. Supplements use was as high as those of health consciousness, nutritional knowledge and health-related practices score level. However, for the nutritional risk factor, supplements non-users were lower than users. Therefore, these results may provide basic information on different category of supplements used by the middle-aged and elderly.