Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, 123 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, USA.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 May;91(5):1342-7. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.28962. Epub 2010 Mar 17.
The design of dietary, metabolic, and intervention studies should reflect the meal patterning of free-living individuals, but this design has not been systematically reviewed recently.
Our objective was to examine meal-patterning trends [meals and snacks, termed eating occasions (EOs)] in a sample of US children and adults.
This was a nationally representative cross-sectional study of US data sets from 1977 to 1978, 1994 to 1998, and 2003 to 2006 in 28,404 children (2-18 y of age) and 36,846 adults (> or = 19 y of age). The main outcomes of interest included the number and size (energy/d) of meal and snack EOs, the composition (food or beverage) of each EO, and the time interval between each EO.
The number of EOs increased over the previous 30 y among all ages. For adults and children, the change in the number of EOs from 1977 to 2006 was greatest for those in the 75th and 90th percentiles, although the mean number increased across all percentiles. Energy intake, particularly from snacking, increased for both groups in all percentiles of the distribution. The time between EOs decreased by 1 h for adults and children (to 3.0 and 3.5 h in 2003-2006, respectively). Overwhelmingly, meals consisted of both food and beverages, but the percentage of snacking occasions that consisted of beverages only increased considerably among children.
US children and adults are consuming foods more frequently throughout the day than they did 30 y ago. Researchers undertaking future clinical, preload, and related food studies need to consider these marked shifts as they attempt to design their research to fit the reality of the eating patterns of free-living individuals.
饮食、代谢和干预研究的设计应反映自由生活个体的膳食模式，但最近尚未对此进行系统审查。
我们旨在研究美国儿童和成人样本中的膳食模式趋势（即餐次和零食，称为进食事件[EOs]）。
这是一项全国代表性的横断面研究，使用了美国 1977-1978 年、1994-1998 年和 2003-2006 年的 4 个数据集，涉及 28404 名儿童（2-18 岁）和 36846 名成人（≥19 岁）。主要观察指标包括餐次和零食 EO 的数量和大小（能量/d）、每个 EO 的组成（食物或饮料）以及 EO 之间的时间间隔。
在所有年龄段中，EO 数量在过去 30 年中增加。对于成年人和儿童，1977-2006 年间 EO 数量的变化在第 75 和 90 百分位数中最大，尽管所有百分位数的平均值都增加了。两组人群的能量摄入，尤其是零食摄入，在分布的所有百分位数中均增加。EO 之间的时间间隔减少了 1 h，成年人和儿童分别减少至 3.0 和 3.5 h（2003-2006 年）。绝大多数餐次既包含食物也包含饮料，但儿童中仅包含饮料的零食 EO 百分比显著增加。
与 30 年前相比，美国儿童和成人每天进食的次数更加频繁。开展未来临床、预负荷和相关食物研究的研究人员需要考虑到这些明显的变化，以便在尝试设计符合自由生活个体进食模式的研究时能够考虑到这些变化。
