The relationship of family meal frequency and weight status in Hong Kong adolescent and related factors

Abstract

Background

Obesity is a global public health crisis. Obesity in adolescents tends to track into adulthood. Home dining is one of the preventive measures which can achieve some of the recommended factors that might protect against weight gain and obesity. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the correlates of home dinner, and the association between home dinner and weight status in Hong Kong adolescent.

Methods

All data used in this study was adopted from a local study done by the Hong Kong Student Obesity Surveillance (HKSOS) project 2006-2007. For the association between family meal frequency and weight status, multi-nominal logistic regression was used for analysis. For further analysis, significant (p<0.05) correlates and frequency of dining at home were set as independent and dependent variables, respectively. All correlates were adopted in multivariate logistic regression, resulting in crude and mutually adjusted odds ratios for frequency of dining at home.

Results

In total, 65.7% of subjects had dinner at home at least 4 times per week. More frequent dining at home ( 4 - 7 vs. 0 - 3 times per week ) was correlated with female sex, lower socioeconomic status, smoking, intact family structure, no full time job mothers and her parenting styles. Subjects who had dinner at home more frequently had higher consumption of cereals, vegetables, high fat food, and snack and soft drink. They also reported watching more TV during meals and a greater feeling of fullness after meals. Adolescents with more frequent home dining were 14% ( 95% CI: 0.06 to 0.20 ) less likely to be obese.

Conclusions

Statistically significant correlations of frequent home dinners with adolescents’ background characteristics and dietary habits were found. Adolescents who had more dinners at home were less likely to be obese. These findings need to be confirmed by prospective studies and interventional studies.