TY - JOUR

T1 - Familial resemblance in dietary intakes of children, adolescents, and parents

T2 - Does dietary quality play a role?

AU - Bogl, Leonie H.

AU - Silventoinen, Karri

AU - Hebestreit, Antje

AU - Intemann, Timm

AU - Williams, Garrath

AU - Michels, Nathalie

AU - Molnár, Dénes

AU - Page, Angie S.

AU - Pala, Valeria

AU - Papoutsou, Stalo

AU - Pigeot, Iris

AU - Reisch, Lucia A.

AU - Russo, Paola

AU - Veidebaum, Toomas

AU - Moreno, Luis A.

AU - Lissner, Lauren

AU - Kaprio, Jaakko

N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgments: We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the European Community within the Seventh RTD Framework Programme Contract No. 266044. We thank the I.Family children and their parents for participating in this extensive examination. We are grateful for the support from school boards, headmasters and communities. We also express our gratitude to the entire I.Family study teams, i.e., our study nurses and interviewers, intervention managers, student assistants, IT personnel, data managers, laboratory technicians, administrative staff, pediatricians, and researchers. Funding Information: Funding: This work was done as part of the I.Family Study (http://www.ifamilystudy.eu/). J.K. is personally supported as an Academy of Finland Research Professor (grant 263278). The lead author also wishes to thank the Juho Vainio Foundation, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service for their financial support. Publisher Copyright: © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

PY - 2017/8/17

Y1 - 2017/8/17

N2 - Information on familial resemblance is important for the design of effective family-based interventions. We aimed to quantify familial correlations and estimate the proportion of variation attributable to genetic and shared environmental effects (i.e., familiality) for dietary intake variables and determine whether they vary by generation, sex, dietary quality, or by the age of the children. The study sample consisted of 1435 families (1007 mothers, 438 fathers, 1035 daughters, and 1080 sons) from the multi-center I.Family study. Dietary intake was assessed in parents and their 2–19 years old children using repeated 24-h dietary recalls, from which the usual energy and food intakes were estimated with the U.S. National Cancer Institute Method. Food items were categorized as healthy or unhealthy based on their sugar, fat, and fiber content. Interclass and intraclass correlations were calculated for relative pairs. Familiality was estimated using variance component methods. Parent–offspring (r = 0.11–0.33), sibling (r = 0.21–0.43), and spouse (r = 0.15–0.33) correlations were modest. Parent–offspring correlations were stronger for the intake of healthy (r = 0.33) than unhealthy (r = 0.10) foods. Familiality estimates were 61% (95% CI: 54–68%) for the intake of fruit and vegetables and the sum of healthy foods and only 30% (95% CI: 23–38%) for the sum of unhealthy foods. Familial factors explained a larger proportion of the variance in healthy food intake (71%; 95% CI: 62–81%) in younger children below the age of 11 than in older children equal or above the age of 11 (48%; 95% CI: 38–58%). Factors shared by family members such as genetics and/or the shared home environment play a stronger role in shaping children’s intake of healthy foods than unhealthy foods. This suggests that family-based interventions are likely to have greater effects when targeting healthy food choices and families with younger children, and that other sorts of intervention are needed to address the intake of unhealthy foods by children.

AB - Information on familial resemblance is important for the design of effective family-based interventions. We aimed to quantify familial correlations and estimate the proportion of variation attributable to genetic and shared environmental effects (i.e., familiality) for dietary intake variables and determine whether they vary by generation, sex, dietary quality, or by the age of the children. The study sample consisted of 1435 families (1007 mothers, 438 fathers, 1035 daughters, and 1080 sons) from the multi-center I.Family study. Dietary intake was assessed in parents and their 2–19 years old children using repeated 24-h dietary recalls, from which the usual energy and food intakes were estimated with the U.S. National Cancer Institute Method. Food items were categorized as healthy or unhealthy based on their sugar, fat, and fiber content. Interclass and intraclass correlations were calculated for relative pairs. Familiality was estimated using variance component methods. Parent–offspring (r = 0.11–0.33), sibling (r = 0.21–0.43), and spouse (r = 0.15–0.33) correlations were modest. Parent–offspring correlations were stronger for the intake of healthy (r = 0.33) than unhealthy (r = 0.10) foods. Familiality estimates were 61% (95% CI: 54–68%) for the intake of fruit and vegetables and the sum of healthy foods and only 30% (95% CI: 23–38%) for the sum of unhealthy foods. Familial factors explained a larger proportion of the variance in healthy food intake (71%; 95% CI: 62–81%) in younger children below the age of 11 than in older children equal or above the age of 11 (48%; 95% CI: 38–58%). Factors shared by family members such as genetics and/or the shared home environment play a stronger role in shaping children’s intake of healthy foods than unhealthy foods. This suggests that family-based interventions are likely to have greater effects when targeting healthy food choices and families with younger children, and that other sorts of intervention are needed to address the intake of unhealthy foods by children.

KW - Adolescence

KW - Diet quality

KW - Dietary intake

KW - Familial aggregation

KW - Familial resemblance

KW - Familiality

KW - Family study

KW - Healthy diet

KW - Shared environment

KW - Young children

U2 - 10.3390/nu9080892

DO - 10.3390/nu9080892

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 28817074

AN - SCOPUS:85027677695

VL - 9

SP - 1

EP - 18

JO - Nutrients

JF - Nutrients

SN - 2072-6643

IS - 8

M1 - 892

ER -