This month’s featured paper is from Nutrition Research Reviews journal, and is entitled ’Understanding meal patterns: definitions, methodology and impact on nutrient intake and diet quality'. The team, Rebecca M. Leech, Anthony Worsley, Anna Timperio and Sarah A. McNaughton from the Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research (C-PAN), School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University reports on the review of literture on adults' meal patterns, including how meal patterns have previously been defined and their associations with nutrient intakes and diet quality.
A recent shift in nutrition research has been towards examining dietary patterns which acknowledges that individual nutrients and foods are highly interrelated. However a poorly understood, yet fundamental step between the intake of individual nutrients/foods and dietary patterns are meals. Examining food intakes at the level of a meal provides evidence on the way people actually consume foods. This has the potential to inform the development of messages and strategies promoting simple and feasible changes to food habits in the population.
A major barrier to interpreting studies in this field of research has been the lack of a clear definition of a meal and/or snack. The need for research to develop a standardised definition for meals and snacks was also recommended in a recent report released by the American Dietary Guidelines Committee. The present paper summarises and critiques meal pattern research, including previous approaches to characterising, defining and measuring meals. The implications of these approaches were also explored in relation to associations between meal patterns, energy and nutrient intakes and overall diet quality among adults.
