Abstract
Pattern analysis of children’s diet may provide insights into chronic disease risk in adolescence and adulthood. This study aimed to assess dietary patterns of young Singaporean children using cluster analysis. An existing dataset included 15,820 items consumed by 561 participants (aged 6–12 years) over 2 days of dietary recall. Thirty-seven food groups were defined and expressed as a percentage contribution of total energy. Dietary patterns were identified using k-means cluster analysis. Three clusters were identified, “Western”, “Convenience” and “Local/hawker”, none of which were defined by more prudent dietary choices. The “Convenience” cluster group had the lowest total energy intake (mean 85.8 ± SD 25.3% of Average Requirement for Energy) compared to the other groups (95.4 ± 25.9% for “Western” and 93.4 ± 25.3% for “Local/hawker”, p < 0.001) but also had the lowest calcium intake (66.3 ± 34.7% of Recommended Dietary Allowance), similar to intake in the “Local/hawker” group (69.5 ± 38.9%) but less than the “Western” group (82.8 ± 36.1%, p < 0.001). These findings highlight the need for longitudinal analysis of dietary habit in younger Singaporeans in order to better define public health messaging targeted at reducing risk of major noncommunicable disease.
Highlights
The study of diet–disease relationships has been previously conducted through the examination of individual nutrients or food groups and their relationship with risk factors or outcomes of chronic diseases [1,2]
Overall dietary habit often comprises of a diverse range of inter-related food items providing a complex combination of nutrients and food group intakes, which may not be adequately modelled through the single-nutrient or single-food approach [3,4]
Dietary data were collected between April 2014 and January 2015 in Singaporean children through duplicate 24 h food recalls completed by both child and parent during home visits
Summary
The study of diet–disease relationships has been previously conducted through the examination of individual nutrients or food groups and their relationship with risk factors or outcomes of chronic diseases [1,2]. “A posteriori” dietary patterns” is a term that refers to data-driven commonalities in estimated habitual food intake [7]. When such patterns are noted within populations, they often highlight divergences in overall nutrient intake and/or markers of nutritional status [4,8]. Longitudinal changes to population-level dietary habit as a result of Singapore’s rapid increase in affluence that have occurred in parallel with increased prevalence of cardiometabolic health issues, type II diabetes [16]. Previous studies in adult Singaporean populations have highlighted that more prudent a posteriori dietary patterns were associated with reduced risk of major health issues [18,19,20,21]
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