Dietary Practices and Meal Patterns among Overweight and Obese School Children in Malaysia: Baseline Data from a School-Based Intervention Study

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to determine dietary practices and meal patterns among Malaysian overweight and obese school children at baseline. This study was part of a school-based obesity intervention study, My Body is Fit and Fabulous at School (MyBFF@school). It involved 1045 primary and 1041 secondary overweight and obese school children from a randomly selected 23 out of 1196 primary and 15 out of 416 secondary government schools in central Peninsular Malaysia. The results showed a significantly higher of adequate intake (4–8 servings/day) of cereals and grains among primary (54.7%) than secondary school children (48.2%). About 28.2% of primary and 32.6% of secondary school children had consumed adequate fruit (2 servings/day), while a very low percentage of both primary (5.0%) and secondary (3.6%) school children consumed adequate vegetables (3 servings/day). As for the meal patterns, school children in both primary and secondary were not taking breakfast regularly (mean±SD for primary: 3.16 ± 2.61 days/week vs secondary: 2.97 ± 2.52 days/week). There was also a significantly higher mean frequency of primary school children brought plain water to school than the secondary school children. In conclusion, urgent actions to address improper dietary practices and meal patterns of overweight and obese school children in Malaysia are warranted.

KEYWORDS:

• Childhood obesity
• dietary practices
• meal patterns

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Director General of Health Malaysia for his permission to publish this article and the Ministry of Education for giving the approval for us to undertake this study. We would also like to thank and acknowledge the tremendous support from all MyBFF@school research officers and assistants. We also would like to express our appreciation to all the students, teachers, and parents as well as staffs of the Ministry of Health, District Health Office/health clinics and local universities that have directly or indirectly involved in this study.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards disclosure

The study was approved by the Medical Research and Ethics Committee, Ministry of Health Malaysia (NMRR NO: 13-439-16563). Written informed consent was obtained from parents or guardians prior to the study.

Additional information

Funding

This research received funding from Ministry of Health, Malaysia (NMRR NO: 13-439-16563).