At around noon on a Friday, hundreds of students filed through the cafeteria at Changdeok Girls’ Middle School in Jung-gu, central Seoul, as they took a school canteen food tray, spoon and chopsticks, quickly scanning the day’s lunch menu offerings. One at a time, the students loaded their trays with fish cake soup, bibimbap, chocolate breadsticks and a mango popsicle for dessert. These school lunches res.
Lee, a 19-year-old high school student based in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, said high-caffeine beverages, such as coffee and energy drinks, are a necessity to aid her in her studies, as she has had a hectic academic schedule ahead of the College Scholastic Aptitude Test (CSAT) slated for November this year.
Concerns are growing over the excessive consumption of caffeine among adolescents, according to a report on Sunday, citing a teen health study. According to last year’s “Youth Health Behavior Survey” conducted by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on some 60,000 middle and high school students in 800 schools nationwide, 22.3 percent of the respondents answered “yes” when ask.