The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a mentoring program to improve the exercise and dietary habits of adolescents.

A non-equivalent control group, pretest-posttest design was used. The independent variable was a mentoring program for improvement of exercise and dietary habits of adolescents, in which the mentors were nursing students and the mentees were female middle school students. The dependent variables were weekly exercise frequency, weekly exercise time, perception of exercise benefit, frequency of vegetable intake, and dietary habits. The intervention was conducted by various methods such as group education, individual approach through the mentor-mentee relationship, and multimedia approaches.

At follow-up, the perception of the exercise benefit was significantly greater in the intervention group than in the control group. The weekly exercise frequency and frequency of vegetable intake in the intervention group were significantly greater after the intervention than those before the intervention.

This mentoring program is potentially of an effective health promotion program for adolescents and will enable nursing students who participate in the program as mentors to gain confidence in their professional capability.

This study was done to compare demographic characteristics, comorbidity, and health habits of elders with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and elders with cognitively normal function (CNF).

Secondary data analysis was conducted using data from the Database of the Seoul Dementia Management Project for 5,773 adults age 60 and above.

The MCI group showed an older age distribution, but there was no significant education difference between the two groups. Elders with MCI had more diabetes and stroke than elders with CNF. In subgroups, the same findings were observed in women, but not in men. While more men with MCI had hypertension compared to men with CNF, there was no significant difference in hypertension between the two groups for women. Elders with MCI, men in particular, had a lower prevalence of obesity than men with CNF. MCI individuals did less exercise compared to individuals with CNF. While there were no significant differences in alcohol consumption and smoking between MCI and CNF groups, the over 80's subgroup with MCI reported more alcohol consumption.

Findings from this study could be helpful in designing community-based dementia prevention programs and health policies to reduce the prevalence of dementia or related cognitive impairments.

The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of life style characteristics on the prevalence risk of metabolic syndrome (MS).

A total of 581 adults were recruited from a cardiovascular outpatient clinic. A newly developed comprehensive life style evaluation tool for MS patients was used, and patient data related to the MS diagnosis were reviewed from the hospital records.

The overall prevalence of MS was 53.2%, and the mean of MS score was 2.6 for patients at a cardiovascular outpatient clinic (78% of the patients had hypertension). Dietary habits among the life style characteristics had significant influence on the prevalence risk of MS and MS scores. And also interestingly, the classification and regression tree (CART) model suggested that the high prevalence risk groups for MS were older adults (61.5≤age<79.4), and adults between 48.5 and 61.5 yr of age with bad dietary habits.

This study indicates that nurses should focus on dietary habits of patients (especially patients classified as high prevalence risk for MS) for improvement and prevention of MS prevalence risk.

This study was done to develop a pregnancy nutrition knowledge scale and to examine the relationships between pregnancy nutrition knowledge and eating habits in pregnant women.

With convenient sampling, 189 pregnant women who used community health centers for their ante-natal care were recruited. Data were collected using a self administered questionnaire including items on pregnancy nutrition knowledge (18 items) developed by researcher and items on eating habits (14 items). Cronbach's alpha and exploratory factor analysis were examined to test reliability and construct validity of the scale. Pearson's correlation coefficients were used to identify the relationship between pregnancy nutrition knowledge and eating habits.

Cronbach's alpha of 18 items was .80. In factor analysis using principal components, 6 factors explained 65% of the total variance. The level of pregnancy nutrition knowledge was not sufficient but correlations between pregnancy nutrition knowledge and some of eating habits were significant. Specifically, pregnancy nutrition knowledge was positively correlated with good eating habits and negatively with bad eating habits.

The pregnancy nutrition knowledge scale developed in this study is acceptable for nutrition education led by nurses. Pregnancy nutrition knowledge and eating habits are considered as major variables for ante-natal nutrition education. In future studies, explorations are needed on dietary intake and physiological indices in pregnant women, comparison of women at risk with those not at risk, and development of nutritional education programs for pregnant women.

This study was to monitor the effects of forming desirable eating and exercise habits and change the blood lipid levels by developing and applying E-Mail educational programs for a hyperlipidemia health check-up.

The research design used a nonequivalent control group pre-post test. Ninety-nine subjects (Exp.=50, Cont.=49) were selected randomly and the male subjects agreed to a hyperlipidemia health check-up at a comprehensive medical screening center. This study verified validity and reliability through factor analysis on a life habit measurement tool. The data was analyzed with SPSS win 12.0 using an χ²-test,t-test, ANOVA and ANCOVA.

Eatingand exercise habit scores of the experimental group which were educated through E-Mails changed considerably more than that of the control group which was not educated. Total-cholesterol and LDLcholesterol in the experimental group was considerably lower than that in the control group, but HDL-cholesterol increased considerably. Triglycerides, however, didn't show change.

An E-Mail educational program may be applied as a hyperlipidemia health check-up nursing intervention strategy.

This study was designed to investigate the effects of a network program to prevent obesity and improve dietary habits for patients taking antipsychotics or antidepressants.

Thirty-seven patients in two hospitals were assigned to a control group (21 patients) or an intervention group (16 patients). The intervention group was evaluated to analyze the effect of the network program for six weeks after the program.

There was a difference in the rate of increased body weight between the control group and the intervention group. Notably, the body weight of both groups before the intervention was significantly increased. However, after the intervention the body weight of the intervention group rarely increased, whereas, the body weight of the control group was significantly increased as expected. There was an observed difference in diet between the control group and the intervention group. After the intervention, caloric intake per day of the intervention group decreased. Also, the duration of the meal of the intervention group after the intervention was longer than before.

The network program for preventing obesity and improving dietary habits of patients taking antipsychotics or antidepressants was effective. The study shows that a network program can be an important part of a nursing intervention in clinical practice.