title: Changes in the frequency of family meals from 1999 to 2010 in the homes of adolescents: trends by sociodemographic characteristics.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine secular trends from 1999 to 2010 in family meal frequency in a population-based sample of adolescents across sociodemographic characteristics.
  
  
  METHODS
  A repeated cross-sectional design was used. Participants were from middle schools and high schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and included 3,072 adolescents (mean age = 14.6 ± 1.8 years) in 1999 and 2,793 adolescents (mean age = 14.4 ± 2.0 years) in 2010 from diverse ethnic/racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Trends in family meal frequency were examined using inverse probability weighting to control for changes in sociodemographic characteristics over time.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Family meal frequency remained fairly constant from 1999 to 2010 in the overall sample, but decreases were found in population subgroups including girls, middle school students (grade: 6-8), Asians, and youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Among youth from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds, the mean number of family meals in the past week decreased from 4.0 in 1999 to 3.6 in 2010 (p = .003). Furthermore, the percentage of youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds eating five or more meals in the past week decreased from 46.9% in 1999 to 38.8% in 2010 (p < .001). In contrast, family meal frequency tended to increase over time among youth from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The widening gap in family meal frequency between youth from low and high socioeconomic backgrounds is concerning, particularly given the greater risk for poor health outcomes among low-income youth. Given findings from other studies suggesting multiple benefits of family meals, interventions to increase family meal frequency are needed that target adolescents and their families from the most vulnerable segments of the population.
authors: Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454, USA. neumark@epi.umn.edu
authors: Dianne
authors: D
authors: Neumark-Sztainer
authors: Melanie
authors: M
authors: Wall
authors: Jayne A
authors: JA
authors: Fulkerson
authors: Nicole
authors: N
authors: Larson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D017195:Adolescent Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005195:Family Relations; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008910:Minnesota; D016487:Parenting / Q000639:trends*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012922:Social Change; D012931:Social Environment; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors