The purpose of this study was to analyze the food-related lifestyle choices of female baby boomers and to investigate variables regarding home meal replacement (HMR) buying behaviors and future needs. This study was conducted on 358 female baby boomers 53 years of age living in Gyeonggi and near Seoul. Out of 420 distributed questionnaires, 358 were returned and used for analysis (response rate: 85.2%). As a result of cluster analysis, three groups were identified based on the food-related lifestyles : a value-seeking group, a convenience-seeking group, and a health-seeking group. Among the three groups, there were significant differences in two socio-demographic characteristics, education level (p<0.05) and regular exercise (p<0.01), and in several health-and food-related habits, type of breakfast (p<0.01), type of dinner (p<0.05), dinner details (p<0.05), frequency of eating out (p<0.05), and eating habits score (p<0.01). The health-seeking group was significantly more likely to purchase ready to cook (RTC) items (59.1%) than were the other groups (p<0.001). However, the ratio of HMR purchasing for the purpose of meal replacement (p<0.05) and an HMR purchasing frequency of more than twice a week (p<0.001) were significantly lower in the health-seeking group. Reasons for selecting HMR showed a similar tendency among groups in taste (26.2%), convenience (18.7%), price (16.9%), safety (15.3%) and type of food (14.3%). However, the satisfaction scores for hygiene and safety reported by the health-seeking group were significantly lower than those reported by the other groups. More than two-thirds of all respondents were willing to purchase HMR in the future, though there were significant differences according to group: convenience-seeking group, 73.1%, health-seeking group, 70.1%, and value-seeking group, 65.7% (p<0.05). Our results suggest that the number of baby boomers purchasing HMR products will continue to grow and baby boomers will want HMR products to be more healthy (52.0%), safe (28.5%) and delicious (13.4%). An emphasis on taste was high in the convenience-seeking group, whereas an emphasis on health was high in the health-seeking and value-seeking groups. In conclusion, this study shows various food-related lifestyles amongst female baby boomers and illustrates the need to develop HMR marketing strategies targeted to these different lifestyles.

The purpose of this study is to examine female baby boomers' dietary habits and their attitudes together with their needs for future perspectives of dietary life. Our aim is to use these findings as a basic data when forecasting for food-related industries or policy making. A survey is being carried out for a total of 358 female baby boomers and analyzed by SPSS 12.0. The following is a summary of this study. The average age is 52.6 years old, most of them graduated from highschool (63.1%) and had a nuclear type of family (76.1%). Only 39.0% is composed of housewives, others had either full-time or part-time jobs. Self-assessment of stress is not so high and only 8.1% are dissatisfied with their lives. 38.2% are either overweight or obese in terms of BMI, and most of them are non-smokers (97.2%) or non-drinkers (63.0%). Their mean dietary habit scores are 70.6±11.8, and the scores show significant relations with their education levels (p<0.01), monthly income (p<0.01), life satisfaction rates (p<0.001), stress levels (p<0.001), smoking habits (p<0.05), drinking habits (p<0.05), regular exercises (p<0.001) and regular health check-ups (p<0.05). The rate of skipping breakfast, lunch and dinner are 18.2%, 1.1%, 5.2% respectively. The main reason for skipping breakfast is the 'lack of time'. With regards to the frequency of grocery shopping, almost half of the subjects (55.7%) said '1~2 times per week' and bought mainly raw food sources such as vegetables, fruits, and meats. The majority of the subjects (91.3%) report that they cooked meals at homes, and took about 1 hour of time. The subjects also point out that cooking was a bothering task, and only 46.4% would prepare meals at home, while others would rather eat out or eat convenience foods. The main reasons for not wanting meal services in the elderly welfare facility are because they didn't want to live such places (48.4%) and the meals are tasteless (31.3%). As for delivery meal services, 60.1% are aware of it, and 39.9% would consider using it in the future. Factors to be considered when using the delivery meal service are sanitation (43.7%), nutrition (28.7%), taste (18.4%), price (6.3%), and brand name (2.9%). This study is expected to be used as useful information when developing food-related strategies for baby boomers in the future.