This research tries to promote hygiene level of student’s school food by looking into perception, knowledge, and behavioral level of school food with 300 male and female students in 4th to 6th grade of elementary school in Daegu. It also finds ways to improve satisfaction level of school food by analyzing student’s satisfaction level this research was done from 13th of December to 31st of December, 2013. The research result as follows.
The average of correct answer rate on knowledge of food hygiene of the respondents was 65.3%, which showed that their knowledge on food hygiene was low. In terms of implementation of personal hygiene in school food. The average score was relatively high, average 3.75 points out of 5 points. Seventy-three point two percent of respondents were have educational experience of hygiene and dietary behaviors at home.
For the question of what has to be the most hygienic, food materials had the highest response rate of 161 persons (53.7%). This result reflects that in terms of school food hygiene, clean food materials are considered the most important. For the food poisoning prevention effect of hand washing, 269 respondents (89.7%) said ‘yes’ and 93.7% of respondents had educational experiences on hand washing. This means that most of the respondents were educated about how to wash hands. Also, majority of respondents answered that education related to school food hygiene is required and for the person to be in charge of hygiene education in school, nutritionist had the highest answering rate of 122 persons (40.7%).
For the average score on perception of school food ‘perception of school food hygiene’ had the highest score of 3.80 points and the next was ‘perception of school food environment’ of 3.71 points, ‘perception of school food service’ of 3.67 points, and ‘perception of meal provided in school food’ of 3.64 points.
The average score for satisfaction on school food was 3.42 points, which showed that respondents had ‘over the average’ satisfaction on school food. As a result of categorizing and analyzing it into 6 factors to evaluate satisfaction on school food ‘satisfaction on dining environment’ had the highest score of 3.50 points. The next was ‘satisfaction on school food hygiene’ of 3.47 points, ‘satisfaction on quality of school food’ of 3.44 points, ‘satisfaction on general school food’ of 3.43 points, ‘satisfaction on school food service’ of 3.42 points, and ‘satisfaction on types and quantity of school food’ of 3.25 points.
For the general factors of unsatisfactory regarding school food the highest answer was the ‘food is not tasty’ and the next was ‘lack of food quantity’, ‘lack of food variety’, ‘lack of hygiene’, and ‘others.’ for other answers, there was ‘unkindness of nutritionist and cook.’
Looking into the research result, student’s knowledge on food hygiene had the lower of correct answer rate. This implies that continuous information and education on food hygiene for students are required in the future. Moreover, in school food for students they had relatively high implementation of personal hygiene but because their hygiene habit formed during childhood may affect when they grow up supervision to let them have proper hygiene habit is needed.
As students consider hygiene of food material in school food is the most important thing more efforts to provide hygienic and safe food are required and especially, more attention and control on hygiene of food material should be made.
For unsatisfactory factor of school food ‘food is not tasty’ had the highest score. This implies that efforts for improving taste of food is not only required but also food that students like needed to be reflected when completing the menu and various menu and cooking recipe should be developed. Furthermore, to remove unsatisfactory factors in school food and increase satisfaction level appropriate food distribution considering individual dining amount and food amount required for everyone is required. Also, dinnerware such as food plate, spoon, and cups need to be washed clean and sterilized for management and it seems nutritionists and employees working for cooking part should have kindness education. Lastly, school should try hard to provide satisfactory school food by identifying needs of students who wish school food to be improved.