Traditional and Non-Traditional Clustering Techniques for Identifying Chrononutrition Patterns in University Students.

ABSTRACT: Background/Objectives: Chrononutrition-the temporal organization of food intake relative to circadian rhythms-has emerged as an important factor in cardiometabolic health. While meal timing is typically analyzed as an isolated variable, limited research has examined integrated meal timing patterns, and no study has systematically compared clustering approaches for their identification. This cross-sectional study compared four clustering techniques-traditional (K-means, Hierarchical) and non-traditional (Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM), Spectral)-to identify meal timing patterns from habitual breakfast, lunch, and dinner times. Methods: The sample included 388 Mexican university students (72.8% female). Patterns were characterized using sociodemographic, anthropometric, food int

SUBMITTER: Mora-Almanza JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12844766 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature