These findings suggest that increased eating frequency is related to decreased obesity and metabolic disease risk in overweight Hispanic youth, despite increases in energy intake.

These findings suggest that > 12 months of breastfeeding duration in the gestational diabetes mellitus group and any duration of breastfeeding in the non-gestational diabetes mellitus mothers is needed to reduce obesity levels in a primarily Hispanic population.

These results suggest that increases in dietary fibre could play an important role in lowering inflammation and therefore metabolic disease risk in high-risk minority youth.

ObjectiveTo investigate the impact of eating frequency on dietary intake, physical activity (PA), metabolic, and adiposity measures in minority youth.Design and MethodsThis analysis included 185 overweight (≥85th BMI percentile) Hispanic and African American youth (8–18 years) with the following cross-sectional measures: height, weight, BMI, dietary intake, body composition, metabolic parameters, PA, visceral adipose tissue (VAT), and subcutaneous adipose tissue. Each eating occasion (EO) was defined as ≥50 calories and ≥15 minutes from any previous EO. Participants were dichotomized based on EOs per 24-h into meal skippers <3 EO (MS; n=27) or normal/frequent eaters ≥3 EO (NFE; n=158). ANCOVAs were used to assess dietary intakes, metabolic outcomes, adiposity, and PA between eating frequency groups.ResultsMS compared to NFE consumed 24% fewer calories per 24-h (p≤0.01), 21% more calories per EO (p≤0.01), ate 40% less often (p≤0.01), had 18% higher triglycerides (p=0.03), and 26% more VAT (p=0.03), with no differences in PA.ConclusionsAlthough meal skipping was associated with decreased energy intake, it was linked to increased calories per EO and higher triglycerides and VAT, which are strong indicators of deleterious metabolic profiles. These findings elucidate that meal skipping may be associated with increased VAT and related metabolic diseases in high-risk minority youth.

Background: To investigate the relationship between eating frequency and specific adiposity markers in a potentially high-risk and understudied population of Hispanic college freshmen. Methods: This study included 92 Hispanic college freshmen (18-19 y). The following cross-sectional data were collected: height, weight, waist circumference, body mass index (BMI), dietary intake, body composition, physical activity, hepatic fat, visceral adipose tissue (VAT), and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT). Results: Infrequent eaters ate 44% less often (2.5 ± 0.2 vs. 4.5 ± 0.8, p ≤ 0.01) and consumed 27% more calories per EO (p ≤ 0.01), while consuming 21% less kcals per day (p ≤ 0.01) compared to frequent eaters. Infrequent eaters had 8% higher BMIs (24.8 ± 4.4 vs. 22.9 ± 3.2 kg/m