Korean Journal of Agricultural Science ISSN:2466-2402(Print) 2466-2410(Online) 농업과학연구

As the economy of Korea has developed, dietary patterns have also changed in many ways. Rural areas, in particular, demonstrate relatively lower food accessibility than in urban areas. The aim of this study was to examine whether or not there were differences in food accessibility between urban and rural areas using data of the Census on Basic Characteristics of Establishments, Consumer Behavior Survey for Food, of the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Also investigated was how such differences would affect the frequency of food purchase, dietary intake, and nutrition intake by district. The results showed that districts with the lowest 10% in food accessibility had lower frequency of food purchase than did the highest 10% districts. In terms of nutrition intake, the daily average nutrition intake was not significantly different among districts. Yet, analysis of the amount of weekly dietary intake indicated that food oasis districts had from 1.3 to 3 times greater dietary intake than did food desert districts. These findings mean that the difference in food accessibility causes unbalanced food intake. Thus, the government must take a comprehensive approach to ensure that rural residents get greater food accessibility.