Association of food form with self-reported 24-h energy intake and meal patterns in US adults: NHANES 2003-2008

Abstract

Background: Laboratory studies suggest that food form (beverages compared with solid foods) evokes behavioral and physiologic responses that modify short-term appetite and food intake. Beverage energy may be less satiating and poorly compensated, which leads to higher energy intake.

Objective: We examined associations between 24-h energy consumed in beverages and a variety of meal and dietary attributes to quantify the contribution of beverage consumption to the energy content of diets in free-living individuals consuming their self-selected diets.

Design: We used dietary recall data for adults (n = 13,704) in NHANES 2003-2008 to examine the multiple covariate-adjusted associations between 24-h energy from beverages and nonbeverages and associations between beverage intake, eating behaviors, and the energy density of beverage and nonbeverage foods.

Results: In the highest tertile of 24-h beverage energy intake, beverages provided >30% of energy. Total 24-h energy and nonbeverage energy consumption and energy density (kcal/g) of both beverage and nonbeverage foods increased with increasing energy from beverages (P < 0.0001). With increasing 24-h beverage energy consumption, the reported frequency of all, snack, and beverage-only ingestive episodes and length of the ingestive period increased, whereas the percentage of energy from main meals decreased (P < 0.0001).

Conclusions: Higher 24-h beverage energy intake was related to higher energy intake from nonbeverage foods, quality of food selections, and distribution of 24-h energy into main meal and snack episodes. Moderation of beverage-only ingestive episodes and curtailing the length of the ingestion period may hold potential to lower uncompensated beverage energy consumption in the US population.

FIGURE 1.

Reported 24-h energy intake and amount of foods and beverages consumed by tertiles of 24-h energy intake from beverages in American men and women: NHANES 2003–2008. Estimates are adjusted means from multiple linear regression models. The independent variables included age (continuous), race-ethnicity (non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Mexican American, or all others), years of education (<12 y, 12 y, some college, or ≥college), family poverty income ratio (<130%, 130–349%, or ≥350%), weekday of recalled intake (Monday–Thursday or Friday–Sunday), month of Mobile Examination Center exam (November–April or May–October), BMI (in kg/m²; <25, 25–29.9, or ≥30), any self-reported recreational activity (yes or no), smoking status (never, former, or current smoker), any self-reported chronic disease (yes or no), and survey cycle (2003–2004, 2005–2006, or 2007–2008). Sex- and age-specific tertiles of 24-h beverage energy---men: tertile 1 of 24-h energy from beverages (<60 y, <340 kcal; ≥60 y, <169 kcal), tertile 2 of 24-h energy from beverages (<60 y, 340–697 kcal; ≥60 y, 169–394 kcal), tertile 3 of 24-h energy from beverages (<60 y, >697 kcal; ≥60 y, >394 kcal); women: tertile 1 of 24-h energy from beverages (<60 y, <174 kcal; ≥60 y, <112 kcal), tertile 2 of 24-h energy from beverages (<60 y, 174–409 kcal; ≥60 y, 112–257 kcal), tertile 3 of 24-h energy from beverages (<60 y, >409 kcal; ≥60 y, >257 kcal).