OBJECTIVE Family meals are associated with a healthier diet among children and adolescents, but how family meal frequency varies in the U.S. population overall by household food availability and sociodemographic characteristics is not well characterized. DESIGN The U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007-2010 assessed the frequency of family meals eaten at home in the past ...

The effects of differences in meal frequency on body weight, body composition, and energy expenditure were studied in mildly food-restricted male rats. Two groups were fed approximately 80% of usual food intake (as periodically determined in a group of ad libitum fed controls) for 131 days. One group received all of its food in 2 meals/day and the other received all of its food in 10-12 meals/d...

Two areas of sports nutrition in which the periodicity of eating has been studied relate to: (1) the habitually high energy intakes of many athletes, and (2) the optimization of carbohydrate (CHO) availability to enhance performance. The present paper examines how the timing and frequency of food and fluid intake can assist the athlete and physically-active person to improve their exercise perf...

Several epidemiological studies have observed an inverse relationship between people’s habitual frequency of eating and body weight, leading to the suggestion that a ‘nibbling’ meal pattern may help in the avoidance of obesity. A review of all pertinent studies shows that, although many fail to find any significant relationship, the relationship is consistently inverse in those that do observe ...

Over the past two decades, substantial research has been conducted to investigate the idea that alterations in short-term nutritional intake play a role in influencing cognitive behaviour and mood. A portion of this research has examined specifically the effect of meal intake on the performance of mental tasks and subjective feelings of mood. Results of this research indicate that a number of v...

Total energy intake and the frequency and size of meals are profoundly influenced by the socio-cultural context in which it occurs. Simply eating with one other person increases the average amount ingested in meals by 44% and with more people present the average meal size grows even larger. The impact of social facilitation of energy intake on the individual appears to result from genetic effec...

Although major research efforts have focused on how specific components of foodstuffs affect health, relatively little is known about a more fundamental aspect of diet, the frequency and circadian timing of meals, and potential benefits of intermittent periods with no or very low energy intakes. The most common eating pattern in modern societies, three meals plus snacks every day, is abnormal f...

OBJECTIVE To assess food intake and meal patterns in adolescents, a cross-sectional study was conducted with 228 adolescents from a public school, SP, Brazil. METHODS Total energy, macronutrients, calcium, iron, and vitamin A intakes were evaluated. The food pattern was compared with the eating patterns established by the Food Pyramid for adolescents. Meal frequency was assessed to identify m...

OBJECTIVE The present study aimed to assess complementary feeding practices and identify the potential risk factors associated with inappropriate complementary feeding in Indonesia for a nationally representative sample of births from 2004 to 2007. DESIGN The data source for the analysis was the 2007 Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey. Multiple logistic regression was performed to analys...