170 THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN MEAL FREQUENCY AND BODY FAT

Abstract

Background: Obesity increases the risk for cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes mellitus[1]. Many studies have revealed that increased meal frequency reduced the total serum cholesterol level, glucose tolerance and body mass index[2–4]. Hypothesizing that an increase in meal frequency decreases the percent body fat with total energy intake adjusted, we evaluated the association between meal frequency and percent body fat in Koreans aged more than 19 years old. Methods: This was cross-sectional observational study. We used the data from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Percent body fat was measured with dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). To examine the association of body fat percent with meal frequency, we performed multiple linear regression analysis adjusting for age, sex, smoking status, drinking frequency, International Physical Activity Questionnaires scores (MET-min per week), daily caloric intake (Kcal/day), and snack frequency. Results: Meal frequency was negatively associated with body fat percent (P = 0.0037). Three meal per day reduced body fat percent significantly (coefficient(95%CI) -1.578 (-2.798,-0.358)) compared than one meal per day respectively. Conclusions: These results suggest that a decreased meal frequency is associated with increased body fat percent although the causal relationship is not exactly known. It would be useful to pursue this question through further studies. References Padwal RS, Sharma AM: Prevention of cardiovascular disease: obesity, diabetes and the metabolic syndrome. Can J Cardiol 2010, 26 Suppl C:18C-20C. Ritchie LD: Less frequent eating predicts greater BMI and waist circumference in female adolescents. Am J Clin Nutr 2012. Smith KJ, Blizzard L, McNaughton SA, Gall SL, Dwyer T, Venn AJ: Daily eating frequency and cardiometabolic risk factors in young Australian adults: cross-sectional analyses. Br J Nutr 2011, [Epub ahead of print]:1-9. Jones PJ, Leitch CA, Pederson RA: Meal-frequency effects on plasma hormone concentrations and cholesterol synthesis in humans. Am J Clin Nutr 1993, 57(6):868-874.