Changes in Health inequality among Korean adolescents before and after school meals

Currently debated issue in the last elections in Korea was offering free meals at schools. Since adolescent spend most of their days in school, it is considered that school meal play an important role in maintaining health. The adolescent prevalence of obesity has been increasing from 4.3% in 1979 to 13.1% in 2008. In 1981 the government passed the school meals act, this allowed local authorities to provide every child at school with a meal. While parental social economic status and nutritional factors have been widely studied by a number of previous studies on adolescent health; little attention has been paid to school meal factors. This study examines health inequalities on adolescent by expanding school meals in Korea. We will employ the KNHNES (1998, 2009) to compute the prevalence of obesity. Parental academic background and family affluence score will be considered as indicators of social economic status on adolescent. Regression analysis is used to identify parental SES factors
It may result that over the last decade, health condition on adolescents is improved and health inequalities between socioeconomic groups reduced than before starting school meals. This finding will be a useful resource for school nutrition policies in Korea and will cut down health problems on adolescent.