The association between family meals, TV viewing during meals, and fruit, vegetables, soda, and chips intake among Latino children

Objective: Examine the relationship of family meals to children's consumption of fruit and vegetables as well as soda and chips. Additionally, to assess the relationship between viewing TV during family meals and children's diet.

Design: Cross-sectional study that used a questionnaire completed by parents.

Setting: Thirteen schools in San Diego, California.

Participants: Seven hundred ninety-four children and their parents.

Analysis: Ordinal regression assessed associations between children's intake of fruit, vegetables, soda, and chips with family meal frequency and TV viewing during family meals.

Results: Children who consumed breakfast, lunch, or dinner with their family at least 4 days per week ate fruit and vegetables 5 or more times a week 84%, 85%, and 80%, respectively. Of those children who ate breakfast, lunch, or dinner with their family at least 4 days per week, 40%, 44%, and 43% consumed soda and chips 5 or more times a week, respectively. Children who ate breakfast with their families at least 4 times a week were more likely to consume fruit and vegetables, and children whose TV was never or rarely on during family meals were less likely to consume soda and chips (P = .04 and P < .001, respectively).

Conclusions: Interventions geared at increasing the frequency of eating breakfast as a family and decreasing the amount of TV watched during family meals are needed, especially among acculturating Latino families.