Beyond the dinner table: who's having breakfast, lunch and dinner family meals and which meals are associated with better diet quality and BMI in pre-school children?

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Having frequent family dinners is associated with better diet quality in children; however, it is unknown whether the frequency of certain family meal types (i.e. dinner) is more strongly associated with better child weight and diet quality compared with other meal types (i.e. breakfast, lunch). Thus, the current study examined the frequency of eating breakfast, lunch or dinner family meals and associations with pre-school children's overall diet quality (HEI-2010) and BMI percentile.

Design

Cross-sectional baseline data (2012-2014) from two randomized controlled childhood obesity prevention trials, NET-Works and GROW, were analysed together.

Setting

Studies were carried out in community and in-home settings in urban areas of Minnesota and Tennessee, USA.

SUBMITTER: Berge JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5955704 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature