Behavior
Mutual causal relationship between food intake and regular meal behaviors among socioeconomically disadvantaged children and youth: An evidence-based longitudinal study from 2009 to 2017 in Taiwan Yueh-Ting Lai* Yueh-Ting Lai Yueh-Ting Lai Yun-Hsuan Wu
Introduction
Evidence has showed that children’s food intake and regular meal behaviors influenced childhood obesity and these behaviors exhibited mutual associations. Moreover, children from disadvantaged families exhibit worse forms of these behaviors. However, there are limited studies that use longitudinal data to investigate the mutual causal relationship between food intake and regular meal behaviors, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged children in Taiwan.
Methods
Data from the five waves (2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017) of the Taiwan Database of Children and Youth in Poverty (n=1400) were used. Food intake behaviors were assessed using two variables: 1) the frequency of fruit and vegetable intake (FVI) and 2) the frequency of snack and beverage intake (SBI). Regular meal behaviors were captured by two variables: 1) the frequency of breakfast (BF) and 2) meal pattern, which classified individuals into four patterns based on having regular main meals (MM) and non-main meals (nMM). Ordinal and multinominal mixed logistic regression were applied to examine the mutual causal relationship.
Results
There were mutual causal relationships between food intake and regular meal behaviors. Children with more frequent FVI were more likely to have BF and less likely to have irregular MM, while those with higher frequency of SBI were more likely to have nMM. On the contrary, children having more frequent breakfast were more likely to have FVI. Irregular MM was associated with a lower likelihood of FVI, while nMM was linked to a higher likelihood of SBI. Furthermore, children who had both MM and nMM were more likely to have higher FVI and SBI.
Conclusion
Based on our findings, we suggest that children should consider adopting both improved food choice and regular meal behaviors, rather than concentrating on just one behavior, to develop healthy eating behaviors. Further studies are needed to explore the underlying mechanism of these mutual effects on children’s health.