Employee Food-hygiene and Nutrition Awareness and Performance at Child Care Centers and Kindergartens Located in Seoul

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate employee food-hygiene and nutrition awareness and performance and to study the current education programs for children at child care centers and kindergartens located in Seoul, Republic of Korea. A self-evaluated type of questionnaire was developed for foodservice employees and teachers using a five-point Likert scale. Employees with an employment history of <1 year and who were <30 years old had the lowest scores for food-hygiene and nutrition awareness and performance. Employees with a cooking license had a higher awareness score regarding cross-contamination than those without a license. Higher nutritional awareness and performance scores were also observed for employees who had more experience as cooks and who had received a nutrition education than those who did not. Approximately 94% and 76.4% of the employees had experience in sanitation and nutrition education, respectively. Most teachers responded that food sanitation-nutrition education for children seemed necessary in a child-care center; however, only 63.9% of the teachers actually taught sanitation-nutrition education to children. The biggest limitation to conduct food sanitation-nutrition education was the "lack of professionalism" of teachers, because only 48.1% of teachers had received a sanitation- utrition education. Thus, a food sanitation-nutrition education program for foodservice employees and teachers must be developed and implemented actively to improve the quality of food service and nutrition education in child care centers and kindergartens.