In this study, the survey was carried out by using the self-administered questionnaire distributed to 180 dieticians and nutrition teachers working in the local elementary, middle, and high schools in Changwon area, and among them 125 questionnaires were retrieved and analyzed (79%). We investigated the sodium reduction status, the sodium reduction performance on the foodservice stage and the educational condition about sodium reduction by working period and position, which results were used as a basis to establish a practical measure for sodium resuction foodservice.
The results were as follows. 94.4% of the total implemented the sodium reduction foodservice, and the majority of 66.9% answered that they were performing ‘more than five days a week (everyday)’. But the practice rate was very low less than 50% in most food categories except the category of soup and stew (98.3%). For the reason of difficulties to practice sodium reduction foodservice, they pointed out ‘difficult to develop the sodium reduction menu (24.7%) and ’low awareness of student(teacher) for sodium reduction foodservice (23.7%)’ in the similar proportion. To the question about the stage which is managed in the most for the sodium reduction, they answered in order of ‘cooking (48.7%)’, ‘menu planning (23.3%)’, ‘promotion and education (21.6%)’, ‘food distribution (3.4%)’ and ‘purchase (3.0%). However, in the survey of the sodium reduction performance, it was shown in order of ’purchase (3.63 points)’, ‘cooking (3.59 points)’, ‘food distribution (3.45 points)’ and ‘menu planning (3.27 points)’. It means that the more sodium reduction practice is needed in the stage of cooking and menu planning. 80.0%of them answered that they had the education for sodium reduction in a year, and they answered ‘yes (46.5%)’ and ‘Average (42.6%)’ for the question of ‘is this helpful for sodium reduction?’. Depending on the working period, the dietitians and nutrition teachers with more than 10 years of working period showed higher score at the sodium reduction practice rate, the number of practice and the performance index than the dietitians and nutrition teachers with less than 10 years of experience (p<0.001), and nutrition teachers showed higher performance point by the foodservice stage including ‘menu planning’ (p<0.01), ‘purchase’ (p<0.01) and ‘cooking’ (p<0.001) than dietitians.
In conclusion, it should be tried to improve the implementation in the stage of cooking and menu planning, and the recognition for the sodium reduction in side dish and fermented food is needed. It will also be capable for dietitians or nutrition teachers to control the sodium contents in the food by calculating the actual amount of salt or the sodium content in the food.