Patterns in children's fruit and vegetable consumption by meal and day of the week

Objective: To assess differences in children's consumption of fruit and vegetables (F&V) by day of the week and meal of the day. Design: Baseline data from two school based nutrition education studies were combined for analysis. Subjects/Setting: 2984 third grade students from 48 participating elementary schools in three school districts in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Measures of Outcome: The frequency of consumption of F&V abstracted by trained registered dietitians from prompted 7-day food records. Statistical Analyses Performed: Mixed model analysis with meals and days as terms, controlling for the within school correlation, gender and ethnic group. Results: F&V were most frequently consumed at weekday lunch, and second most frequently at dinner. Participation in school lunch accounted for a substantial proportion of F&Vs consumed at lunch. Few F&Vs were consumed at breakfast or snack. Conclusions: School lunch makes an important contribution to elementary school students' F&V consumption. Dietary change programs should target parents to increase F&V consumption at dinner, and target students for the meals over which they assert the most control: breakfast and snacks.