Are eating occasions and their energy content related to child overweight and socioeconomic status?
The objectives of this study were: (i) to assess the relationships between childhood overweight (OW) and four eating behaviors: daily eating frequency, and the relative contribution of breakfast, main meals (lunch and dinner), and snacks to total daily energy intake (EI); (ii) to explore whether these eating behaviors are involved in the negative association between socioeconomic status (SES) and OW. A representative sample of French children aged 3-11 years (n = 748) was taken from the 1998-1999 cross-sectional French INCA1 (Enquête Individuelle et Nationale sur les Consommations Alimentaires) food consumption survey. Food intake was reported in a 7-day food record, and SES, physical activity, sedentary behavior (SED), weight, and height were reported by answering face-to-face questionnaires. After adjusting for EI, physical activity, and SED, OW was positively associated with the contribution of the main meals to EI (P = 0.03), not significantly associated with the contribution of breakfast to EI, and inversely correlated to the number of eating episodes (P = 0.009) and to the contribution of snacking episodes to EI (P = 0.007). Our data suggest that a combination of more frequent intake occasions and lower contribution of the main meals to total daily EI is associated with a smaller risk of OW in children. However, eating frequency was the only eating behavior that played a slight mediation role (contributing approximately 8%) in the inverse relationship between SES and OW.
Lioret
Sandrine
S
French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA), Dietary Survey Unit-Nutritional Epidemiology, Maisons-Alfort, France. s.lioret@afssa.fr
Touvier
Mathilde
M
Lafay
Lionel
L
Volatier
Jean-Luc
JL
Maire
Bernard
B
D001835:Body Weight / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004435:Eating / Q000502:physiology; D002149:Energy Intake / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D050177:Overweight / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012923:Social Class