Experience the Season with All Five Senses!... Gwangjin-gu, Children's Taste Development Education

Taste Development Education, Meal Salt Content Measurement, and Monitoring for 638 Children in Daycare Centers and Kindergartens

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Gwangjin-gu is operating the ‘Children’s Taste Formation Education Program’ to promote healthy eating habits among children.

The average daily sodium intake of Koreans is 3,220 mg (as of 2020), which is about 1.5 times higher than the recommended sodium intake of 2,300 mg to reduce the risk of chronic diseases, and the consumption of convenience foods such as instant meals has become routine.

These poor eating habits are a cause of chronic diseases such as adult hypertension.

Accordingly, Gwangjin-gu has prepared the ‘Children’s Taste Formation Education Program’ to educate infants and toddlers, who are beginning to form eating habits, about healthy seasonal foods and to manage low-sodium school meals through controlling the salt content in meals.

The program will be conducted until October for 638 children at 20 daycare centers and kindergartens, consisting of taste formation education and meal salt content management.

First, the taste formation education is themed ‘Let’s Eat the Seasons with Our Five Senses’ and includes sessions such as ▲Curious about Seasonal Foods of the Four Seasons ▲How Do Tomatoes Grow? ▲Stories of the Five Senses (Ogam) ▲Stories of the Five Tastes (Omi) ▲Making Rice Balls Containing the Four Seasons, providing opportunities to learn about and experience healthy seasonal ingredients.

Specialized food instructors from Seoul and nutritionists from public health centers visit daycare centers and kindergartens to conduct role-playing and cooking classes using fruits and vegetables, offering various experiences tailored to children’s perspectives.

Meal salt content management is carried out in cooperation with the Gwangjin-gu Children’s Meal Management Support Center, which visits daycare centers on a rotating basis. Salt meters are lent to daycare meal staff, and they are educated on how to measure salt content themselves, with monitoring to maintain soup salt content below 0.5%.

Additionally, on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of every month, a ‘Soup-Free Day’ campaign is held to help provide healthy meals. For more details, contact the Gwangjin-gu Public Health Center’s Health Policy Division.

Gwangjin-gu expects this program to provide children with opportunities to become familiar with healthy foods and to help establish proper lifelong eating habits by practicing low-sodium diets from an early age.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.