OBJECTIVE: Most 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.
METHODS: Dietary intake was assessed with a 1-d weighed dietary record for 15 618 Japanese adults ≥20 y of age.
RESULTS: Using 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.
CONCLUSION: Major meal-specific dietary patterns were identified in the Japanese context, which differentially contributed to major overall dietary patterns.
