Meal-specific dietary patterns and their contribution to overall dietary patterns in the Japanese context: Findings from the 2012 National Health and Nutrition Survey, Japan.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE\nMost studies on dietary patterns have focused on the total daily intake of foods without differentiating intake at specific eating occasions. The aim of this study was to identify meal-specific (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) dietary patterns and examine their contribution to overall dietary patterns, using data from the 2012 National Health and Nutrition Survey, Japan.\n\n\nMETHODS\nDietary intake was assessed with a 1-d weighed dietary record for 15 618 Japanese adults ≥20 y of age.\n\n\nRESULTS\nUsing principal component analysis based on daily consumption of 22 food groups, four overall dietary patterns were identified: vegetable/fruit/fish/pulse, bread/dairy, meat/fat, and noodle/seasoning patterns. Four meal-specific dietary patterns, which were independently identified in the same manner based on consumption at each eating occasion, were as follows: • Breakfast: rice/vegetable/fish/pulse/seasoning, bread/dairy/fruit/sugar, meat/egg/fat, and tea/coffee patterns; • Lunch: bread/dairy, noodle/seasoning, meat/fat, and vegetable/pulse/potato/sugar patterns; and • Dinner: meat/vegetable/seasoning, noodle/alcoholic beverage, fish/sugar/alcoholic beverage, and other grains/fat patterns. The major contributors to interindividual variation in the vegetable/fruit/fish/pulse overall dietary pattern included the rice/vegetable/fish/pulse/seasoning breakfast (28%), the vegetable/pulse/potato/sugar lunch (15%), and the fish/sugar/alcoholic beverage dinner (19%). For other overall dietary patterns, the major contributors were generally patterns with similar characteristics, namely the bread/dairy/fruit/sugar breakfast (33%) and the bread/dairy lunch (24%) for the bread/dairy overall dietary pattern; the meat/egg/fat breakfast (13%), the meat/fat lunch (33%), the meat/vegetable/seasoning dinner (28%), and the other grains/fat dinner (11%) for the meat/fat overall dietary pattern; and the noodle/seasoning lunch (51%) and the noodle/alcoholic beverage dinner (25%) for the noodle/seasoning overall dietary pattern.\n\n\nCONCLUSION\nMajor meal-specific dietary patterns were identified in the Japanese context, which differentially contributed to major overall dietary patterns.