Table 3.
Associations between family meal type (breakfast, lunch, dinner, total meals) and pre-school children’s diet quality and BMI percentile among non-Hispanic and Hispanic households; baseline data from NET-Works and GROW studies among parent–child (aged 2–5 years) pairs from respectively Minnesota (n 222 non-Hispanics; n 312 Hispanics) and Tennessee (n 545 Hispanics; n 55 non-Hispanics), USA, 2012–2014
| Non-Hispanic households (n 276) | Hispanic households (n 857) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| β | sd | P value | β | sd | P value | |
| HEI-2010 | ||||||
| Breakfast | ||||||
| Model 1* | 1·44 | 0·32 | <0·0001 | 0·19 | 0·15 | 0·1899 |
| Model 2† | 1·10 | 0·34 | 0·0013 | 0·15 | 0·15 | 0·3347 |
| Model 3‡ | 1·30 | 0·41 | 0·0015 | 0·05 | 0·19 | 0·7948 |
| Lunch | ||||||
| Model 1 | 0·61 | 0·33 | 0·0632 | 0·20 | 0·15 | 0·1799 |
| Model 2 | 0·32 | 0·34 | 0·3345 | 0·13 | 0·15 | 0·3807 |
| Model 3 | −0·46 | 0·40 | 0·2515 | 0·04 | 0·19 | 0·8497 |
| Dinner | ||||||
| Model 1 | 0·50 | 0·39 | 0·1901 | 0·29 | 0·16 | 0·0728 |
| Model 2 | 0·51 | 0·37 | 0·1721 | 0·29 | 0·16 | 0·0726 |
| Model 3 | 0·37 | 0·38 | 0·3373 | 0·26 | 0·17 | 0·1204 |
| Total | ||||||
| Model 1 | 0·52 | 0·15 | 0·0005 | 0·12 | 0·06 | 0·0578 |
| Model 2 | 0·38 | 0·15 | 0·0137 | 0·10 | 0·07 | 0·1211 |
| Model 3 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| BMI percentile | ||||||
| Breakfast | ||||||
| Model 1 | −0·27 | 0·37 | 0·4638 | 0·00 | 0·18 | 0·9793 |
| Model 2 | −0·19 | 0·40 | 0·6433 | −0·12 | 0·19 | 0·5173 |
| Model 3 | 0·12 | 0·48 | 0·8089 | −0·26 | 0·24 | 0·2723 |
| Lunch | ||||||
| Model 1 | −0·31 | 0·37 | 0·3948 | 0·13 | 0·18 | 0·4780 |
| Model 2 | −0·47 | 0·39 | 0·2293 | 0·06 | 0·19 | 0·7299 |
| Model 3 | −0·54 | 0·47 | 0·2580 | 0·23 | 0·24 | 0·3453 |
| Dinner | ||||||
| Model 1 | −0·26 | 0·43 | 0·5413 | −0·07 | 0·20 | 0·7326 |
| Model 2 | −0·10 | 0·43 | 0·8193 | −0·01 | 0·20 | 0·9775 |
| Model 3 | 0·04 | 0·45 | 0·9349 | 0·02 | 0·21 | 0·9413 |
| Total | ||||||
| Model 1 | −0·17 | 0·17 | 0·3296 | 0·02 | 0·08 | 0·8502 |
| Model 2 | −0·15 | 0·18 | 0·3903 | −0·01 | 0·08 | 0·8827 |
| Model 3 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
NET-Works, Now Everybody Together for Amazing and Healthy Kids; GROW, Growing Right Onto Wellness; SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; WIC, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; HEI-2010, Health Eating Index-2010.
Estimates are beta coefficients. Interpretation=for every one-day increase in eating (breakfast, lunch, dinner, total) family meals, HEI-2010 score and BMI percentile changes. Values shown in bold are significant at P<0·05.
Model 1: unadjusted.
Model 2: adjusted for age, sex, marital status, employment status and site. For non-Hispanic participants, also adjusted for race/ethnicity. BMI models also adjusted for mean total daily energy intake.
Model 3: adjusted for all of the covariates in Model 2 plus the frequency of the other two family meals.