Korean J Fam Pract. 2018; 8(1): 25-31  https://doi.org/10.21215/kjfp.2018.8.1.25
Unhealthy Eating Habits among Cancer Survivors
Jin Gon Park, Youn A Kim, Ji Won Lee, Soyeon Kim, Young-Jin Ko*
Department of Family Medicine, Korea Cancer Center Hospital, Seoul, Korea
Young-Jin Ko
Tel: +82-2-970-2284, Fax: +82-2-970-2401
E-mail: youngjin1224@gmail.com
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8262-3794
Received: March 8, 2017; Revised: June 13, 2017; Accepted: June 30, 2017; Published online: February 20, 2018.
© The Korean Academy of Family Medicine. All rights reserved.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background: It has generally been suggested that cancer survivors adhere to several healthy lifestyle recommendations including eating, smoking, and drinking habits. However, adherence rates have not been as high as expected. Therefore, we tried to compare the eating, smoking, and drinking habits of cancer survivors to those of non-cancer controls.
Methods: We collected data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey IV-V. We included participants who completed a 24-hour dietary recall, a food frequency questionnaire, and an interview. A total 14,832 individuals were included in this study. Among those, 434 were cancer survivors. We compared the relationship between healthy habits (balanced diet, intake of fruit or vegetables more than 5 times a day, fat intake less than 25%, sodium intake less than 2,000 mg, non-current drinker, and non-current smoker) in cancer survivors with that in the non-cancer controls.
Results: The adjusted odds ratios (AOR) of cancer survivors related to a healthy diet were statistically non-significant compared to non-cancer controls after adjustment for confounding factors. The AORs of cancer survivors related to being a non-current drinker and non-current smoker were 1.42 (1.03−1.95) and 0.94 (0.63–1.42), respectively.
Conclusion: In this study, there were less statistically significant non-current drinkers in the cancer survivors than in the non-cancer controls. However, current smoking and healthy eating patterns were not significantly different between cancer survivors and non-cancer controls. More education and an information campaign would be needed to improve cancer survivors’ adherence to healthy lifestyles.
Keywords: Cancer Survivors; Healthy Diet; Life Style
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