Family meal frequency and its association with food consumption and nutritional status in adolescents: A systematic review.

Giselle Rhaisa Do Amaral E Melo,Jennifer Nakabayashi,Natacha Toral,Renata Monteiro,Mariane Viana Bandeira,Priscila Olin Silva,Matias Noll

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0239274

Giselle Rhaisa Do Amaral E Melo, Jennifer Nakabayashi + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239274

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Sep 18, 2020
Citations: 28	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universidade de Brasília

Abstract

This systematic review evaluated the association between frequency of family meals (FFM) and nutritional status (NS) and/or food consumption (FC) in adolescents. The protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42017062180) and followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. No publication date, language, or meal type restrictions were imposed. Only full-text original articles were included; qualitative studies were excluded. Studies were identified by searching 5 electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, BVS Brazil, and Adolec) and gray literature (Google Scholar) and by scanning reference lists of included articles. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale for cohort and cross-sectional studies. Initial search yielded 2001 results and 47 articles were included. An updated literature search added 3 articles. Of the 50 studies included, 25 studied the association between FFM and NS, 32 investigated the association between FFM and FC, being that seven studies analyzed both outcomes. Thirty-four were cross-sectional studies, 12 were longitudinal studies, and 4 studies analyzed both cross-sectional and longitudinal data. Thirty-five studies were rated as having good quality, whereas 19 were of fair quality. Sample size ranged from 140 to 102 072 participants. Most investigations evaluated the frequency of breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner/supper/evening meals over a 1-week period. Seventeen studies identified a positive relationship between high FFM and better NS, and 26 found a positive association between high FFM and better FC. In conclusion, this review showed an association between FFM and healthy dietary patterns, such as increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. Further research is needed to understand the association between FFM and NS, since some studies showed a protective role of family meals against obesity in this age group, whereas other studies identified no significant association between these variables.

Highlights

ObjectivesThe aim of the current study is to examine the relationship between family meals and nutrition behaviors of adolescents in New Zealand
The association between frequency of family meals (FFM) and food consumption (FC) was investigated in 32 studies, which are summarized in Table 2 [11, 17, 22, 23, 27, 30, 38, 39, 41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64]
This topic has been more extensively investigated in infants and toddlers due to the regularity of family meals in these age groups [65], but studies in older children are beginning to emerge as a result of the adoption of a holistic approach to determinants of health behaviors, in addition to the increased prevalence of noncommunicable diseases and overweight in this population [66]