LAUSR

Background Healthy diets are essential for preventing lifestyle diseases. However, inadequate diet such as high fat-energy ratios and insufficient vegetable intake are observed in young adults in Japan. In addition, a large proportion of young adults skip breakfast. We hypothesized that these inadequate dietary factors are mutually related and that improvement in one effectively leads to improvement in the other. Objective To examine the association between dietary practices for lifestyle disease prevention and breakfast habits. Study Design, Settings, and Participants Hyogo diet survey 2016 is a cross-sectional survey of the stratified random sample of 32 areas (4,747 household members) in Hyogo Prefecture. Subjects included 791 adults (male, 368; female, 423) aged 20-49 years who completed the self-administered questionnaire of the survey. Measurable Outcome/Analysis The questionnaire included questions on breakfast frequency and dietary habits. Skipping breakfast was defined as a breakfast frequency of three days or less per week. Logistic regression analysis was performed using the variables of subjects’ dietary practices for lifestyle disease prevention (six items) as independent variables and whether or not subjects ate breakfast as dependent variable. The models were adjusted for sex. Results Logistic regression analysis showed significantly higher odds for skipping breakfast in subjects who did not practice the following dietary habits than those who did: “eat a lot of vegetables” (odds ratio: 1.72, 95% confidence interval: 1.19-2.49), “eat fruits” (1.65, 1.07-2.56), “restrict salt intake” (1.59, 1.07-2.37), and “control sugar intake” (1.51, 1.04-2.20). Conclusion Four of the six dietary practices for lifestyle disease prevention showed an association with skipping breakfast. The results suggest that improving diet for preventing lifestyle diseases may lead to eating breakfast.