Prevailing dietary patterns and their association with nutritional outcomes are poorly understood, particularly for children in Korea. Our purposes were to identify major dietary patterns and to examine their associations with overweight among young children in Korea. For 1441 preschool children, usual diet was assessed by a FFQ, from which thirty-three food groups were created and entered into a factor analysis. We identified three dietary patterns by relative intake frequency of (1) vegetables, seaweeds, beans, fruits, milk and dairy products (Korean healthy pattern); (2) beef, pork, poultry, fish and fast foods (animal foods pattern); and (3) ice cream, soda, chocolate, cookies and candies (sweets pattern). The Korean healthy pattern was associated with better health status. As compared with the lowest quintile, the multivariate-adjusted OR of the highest quintile for health status inferior or similar to their peers was 0·59 (95 % CI 0·42, 0·84). Likelihood of being overweight was higher among those in the highest quintile (OR 1·77 (95 % CI 1·06, 2·94)) v. the lowest quintile regarding the animal foods pattern. These findings suggest that major dietary patterns are predictors of overweight and health status in Korean preschool children.Dietary patterns: Factor analysis: Overweight: Health status Improvement of child health is a great concern in Korea since epidemiological evidence has indicated increases of inappropriate eating habits and health risks such as obesity. Obesity among children has increased dramatically in Korea, presenting 2-3 % in the 1970s and 15-20 % in the 2000s 1,2 .Lifestyle factors are well known to be important in the development of obesity besides genetic and other biological factors. One of these lifestyle factors is diet. A number of studies have examined relationships of obesity and diet, mainly focusing on individual nutrients and foods (i.e. energy, fat, milk, vegetables, etc) 3 -6 , fewer attempts have been made to identify dietary patterns in this regard for children.Dietary-pattern analysis is useful for dietary recommendation as it allows studying the effect of many foods and their combinations simultaneously. One of the methods that can be used to study dietary patterns is factor analysis. Factor analysis reduces foods into patterns (factors) based on correlations between foods, and each individual receives a factor score for all derived factors 7 .Several studies on dietary patterns have shown associations of child obesity with specific dietary patterns such as sweet foods, meats, low-quality foods, snacks, dairy foods, fruit and vegetables, although the results are not consistent 8 -12 .