Meal and snack patterns of 7-13-year-old schoolchildren in southern Brazil.

Objective: The aim of the current study was to identify and describe the meal and snack patterns (breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner and evening snack) of public schoolchildren.

Design: Cross-sectional study. Information on the previous day's food intake was obtained through the Web-CAAFE (Food Intake and Physical Activity of Schoolchildren), an interactive questionnaire, which divides daily food consumption into three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and three snacks (mid-morning, mid-afternoon and evening). Each meal contains thirty-one food items and the schoolchildren clicked on the food items consumed in each meal. Factor analysis was used to identify meal and snack patterns. The descriptions of the dietary patterns (DP) were based on food items with factor loads ≥ 0·30 that were considered representative of each DP.

Setting: Schoolchildren, Florianopolis, Brazil.

Participants: Children (n 1074) aged 7-13 years.

Results: Lunch was the most consumed meal (96·0 %), followed by dinner (86·4 %), breakfast (85·3 %) and mid-afternoon snack (81·7 %). Four DP were identified for breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, dinner and evening snack, and three for mid-afternoon snack. Breakfast, lunch and dinner patterns included traditional Brazilian foods. DP consisting of fast foods and sugary beverages were also observed, mainly for the evening snack.

Conclusions: The results of the current study provide important information regarding the meal and snack patterns of schoolchildren to guide the development of nutrition interventions in public health.