Poster Presentation
Thursday, 20 July 2006
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Thursday, 20 July 2006
3:00 PM - 3:30 PM
This presentation is part of : Poster Presentations II
Nutritional Status of First Generation Korean-American Elderly
YoungHee Lee, PhD, RN1, Miyong Kim, PhD, RN2, Hae-Ra Han, PhD, RN2, and Kim. B Kim, PhD3. (1) Nursing, Kwandong University, Gangneung, MD, South Korea, (2) School of Nursing, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA, (3) Korean Resource Center, Baltimore, MD, USA
Learning Objective #1: understand the dietary and nutritionary status in Korean American Elderly.
Learning Objective #2: realize nutrient related health status in Korean American Elderly.
Nutritional status is an integral component of the health of older individuals. Majority of immigrant literature has been focus on an assumption of drastic dietary change associate with immigration and acculturation experience. Empirical validation of the assumption such as in-depth dietary or nutritional assessment, however, is scarce in older immigrant groups. The purpose of this descriptive study is to examine the dietary and nutritional assessment in a group of Korean American Elderly (KAE), one of the most understudied immigrant groups in U.S. This study utilized dietary diary data from a sample of 202(male 73, female 129) KAE in Maryland who participated in a comprehensive cardiovascular assessment. Dietary intakes were collected using 24 hours recall interview. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and nutritient intakes were analyzed using a computer aided nutritional analysis program (Can-pro). The descriptive result of dietary intakes of the sample, then compared to RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance). The finding of these analyses indicated that the average nutrients and calorie intakes of KAE were insufficient to meet the most of categories of RDA with an exception of sodium: Calories (82%), Vitamin C (84%), Vitamin E (84%), Calcium (69%), Zinc (68%), sodium (193%). They tend to consume high carbohydrate (70.5% of energy source) low protein (18% of energy source) and low fat (11.3% of energy source) consumption which may be resulted from salted vegetable based traditional Korean diet. Given that the average length of stay in U.S for the sample was 15 years, the findings were rather unexpected. These findings indicated that the first generation KAE tend to adhere their traditional diet and may not have adequate nutrition in all categories. The finding of this study reminded researchers of a critical need of constructing and implementing an intervention based on careful empirical assessment of each subgroup.

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