Table 2.
Ten-year secular trends in family meal frequency from (1999-2010) in a population-based sample of adolescents by sociodemographic characteristics
| Number of family meals: past week (mean) |
Infrequent family meals (≤ 2 times/past week) (%) |
Infrequent family meals (≥ 5 times/past week) (%) |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 Na |
2010 N |
1999a | 2010 | ESb | p-value | 1999 | 2010 | p-value | 1999 | 2010 | p-value | |
|
|
||||||||||||
| Total sample | 3072 | 2793 | 4.03 | 3.90 | −0.05 | .054 | 31.9 | 34.5 | .041 | 47.2 | 44.4 | .035 |
| Gender | ||||||||||||
| Boys | 1436 | 1307 | 4.08 | 4.04 | −0.02 | .618 | 30.2 | 31.7 | .397 | 48.1 | 46.6 | .425 |
| Girls | 1636 | 1486 | 3.98 | 3.78 | −0.08 | .032 | 33.4 | 36.9 | .047 | 46.4 | 42.5 | .033 |
| School level | ||||||||||||
| Middle school | 1431 | 1287 | 4.59 | 4.21 | −0.15 | <.001 | 24.2 | 30.3 | <.001 | 56.9 | 50.4 | <.001 |
| High school | 1641 | 1506 | 3.54 | 3.63 | 0.04 | .331 | 38.7 | 38.0 | .714 | 38.7 | 39.3 | .735 |
| Ethnicity/race | ||||||||||||
| White | 587 | 525 | 4.02 | 4.24 | 0.09 | .092 | 31.4 | 28.1 | .180 | 47.0 | 51.1 | .120 |
| Black | 885 | 808 | 3.59 | 3.67 | 0.03 | .567 | 40.5 | 38.7 | .485 | 41.8 | 40.7 | .668 |
| Hispanic | 513 | 472 | 3.92 | 4.04 | 0.05 | .546 | 30.2 | 34.1 | .289 | 43.6 | 46.1 | .539 |
| Asian | 615 | 555 | 4.69 | 3.95 | −0.29 | <.001 | 22.8 | 31.9 | <.001 | 57.8 | 43.3 | <.001 |
| Native American | 110 | 102 | 4.34 | 3.73 | −0.24 | .083 | 29.4 | 39.6 | .106 | 55.6 | 43.6 | .069 |
| Mixed/other | 362 | 331 | 4.00 | 3.65 | −0.14 | .137 | 31.4 | 37.8 | .149 | 44.5 | 42.2 | .608 |
| Socioeconomic | ||||||||||||
| status (SES) | ||||||||||||
| Low | 1168 | 1072 | 3.99 | 3.62 | −0.14 | .003 | 31.8 | 38.8 | .003 | 46.9 | 38.8 | <.001 |
| Low-middle | 655 | 595 | 3.82 | 3.72 | −0.04 | .513 | 35.7 | 38.1 | .399 | 43.0 | 41.3 | .559 |
| Middle | 521 | 471 | 3.96 | 3.92 | −0.02 | .786 | 34.1 | 33.8 | .923 | 45.8 | 45.8 | .998 |
| High-middle | 388 | 347 | 4.17 | 4.53 | 0.14 | .039 | 29.5 | 22.9 | .032 | 49.7 | 55.1 | .125 |
| High | 224 | 203 | 4.48 | 4.71 | 0.09 | .268 | 23.8 | 23.7 | .986 | 55.8 | 61.3 | .200 |
a The 1999 sample was weighted to allow for an examination of secular trends in weight-related outcomes independent of demographic shifts in the population. For example, the test comparing family meals within the low SES group between 1999 to 2010 is mutually controlled so that gender, school level, ethnicity/race, and SES makeup are the same in the low SES group in the 1999 sample as in the 2010 sample.
bES = effect size is calculated as the difference in mean family meal frequency between 1999 and 2010 divided by the pooled standard deviation of fami meal frequency which is 2.57.