1Department of Family Medicine,Kangwon National University Hospital,Kangwon National University School of Medicine,156, Baengnyeong-ro, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do 24289,Republic of Korea.
2Department of Dermatology,Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital,Hallym University College of Medicine,7, Keunjaebong-gil, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do 18450,Republic of Korea.
Br J Nutr. 2018 Apr;119(8):918-927. doi: 10.1017/S0007114518000557.
The role of eating frequency (EF) in obesity development has been debated, and few studies have investigated Asian populations. Diet quality might affect the association between EF and obesity. Therefore, we investigated the association between EF and obesity indicators in a representative sample of Korean adults with consideration to diet quality. This cross-sectional study used data of 6951 participants aged 19-93 years (male 49·8 %, female 50·2 %) from the Fourth Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. EF was assessed using a questionnaire, and diet quality was defined as mean adequacy ratio (MAR). To explore the association between EF and obesity indicators, we used multiple linear regression analyses with and without interaction terms between diet quality and EF. EF was inversely associated with each obesity indicator, including body fat percentage (BF%), BMI and waist circumference (WC), showing a significant linear trend (P<0·001 for BF%, WC and BMI). In addition, the association between EF and each obesity indicator was significantly altered according to diet quality (P value of the interaction term EF×diet quality=0·008 in the regression model for BF%, <0·001 for BMI and 0·043 for WC). In the stratified analyses according to diet quality, EF had a significant inverse association with BF%, WC and BMI in the high diet quality groups, but not in the low diet quality groups. This study suggests that EF is inversely associated with the obesity indicators when diet quality is high, but not when it is low in Korean adults.
进食频率（EF）在肥胖发展中的作用一直存在争议，很少有研究调查过亚洲人群。饮食质量可能会影响 EF 与肥胖之间的关联。因此，我们在具有代表性的韩国成年人样本中，考虑到饮食质量，调查了 EF 与肥胖指标之间的关联。本横断面研究使用了第四次韩国国家健康和营养检查调查的 6951 名 19-93 岁参与者（男性 49·8%，女性 50·2%）的数据。EF 通过问卷进行评估，饮食质量定义为平均充足率（MAR）。为了探讨 EF 与肥胖指标之间的关联，我们使用了包含和不包含饮食质量与 EF 之间交互项的多元线性回归分析。EF 与每个肥胖指标呈负相关，包括体脂肪百分比（BF%）、BMI 和腰围（WC），呈现出显著的线性趋势（BF%、WC 和 BMI 的 P<0·001）。此外，EF 与每个肥胖指标之间的关联根据饮食质量而显著改变（回归模型中 BF%的 EF×饮食质量交互项的 P 值为 0·008，BMI 的 P 值<0·001，WC 的 P 值为 0·043）。根据饮食质量进行分层分析，EF 与高饮食质量组的 BF%、WC 和 BMI 呈显著负相关，但与低饮食质量组无关。本研究表明，在韩国成年人中，当饮食质量较高时，EF 与肥胖指标呈负相关，而当饮食质量较低时则无相关性。
