Home Cooking and Child Obesity in Japan: Results from the A-CHILD Study
Department of Global Health Promotion, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), 1-5-45, Yushima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8519, Japan
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Nutrients 2019, 11(12), 2859; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11122859
Received: 1 October 2019
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Revised: 18 November 2019
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Accepted: 19 November 2019
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Published: 21 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Influences on Dietary Intake of Children and Adolescents)
This study aimed to investigate the association between the frequency of home cooking and obesity among children in Japan. We used cross-sectional data from the Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty study, a population-based sample targeting all fourth-grade students aged 9 to 10 in Adachi City, Tokyo, Japan. Frequency of home cooking was assessed by a questionnaire for 4258 caregivers and classified as high (almost every day), medium (4–5 days/week), or low (≤3 days/week). School health checkup data on height and weight were used to calculate body mass index z-scores. Overall, 2.4% and 10.8% of children were exposed to low and medium frequencies of home cooking, respectively. After adjusting for confounding factors, children with a low frequency of home cooking were 2.27 times (95% confidence interval: 1.16–4.45) more likely to be obese, compared with those with a high frequency of home cooking. After adjustment for children’s obesity-related eating behaviors (frequency of vegetable and breakfast intake and snacking habits) as potential mediating factors, the relative risk ratio of obesity became statistically non-significant (1.90; 95% confidence interval: 0.95–3.82). A low frequency of home cooking is associated with obesity among children in Japan, and this link may be explained by unhealthy eating behaviors.
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Keywords:
home cooking; meal preparation; obesity; children; parenting
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Tani, Y.; Fujiwara, T.; Doi, S.; Isumi, A. Home Cooking and Child Obesity in Japan: Results from the A-CHILD Study. Nutrients 2019, 11, 2859. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11122859
AMA Style
Tani Y, Fujiwara T, Doi S, Isumi A. Home Cooking and Child Obesity in Japan: Results from the A-CHILD Study. Nutrients. 2019; 11(12):2859. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11122859
Chicago/Turabian StyleTani, Yukako, Takeo Fujiwara, Satomi Doi, and Aya Isumi. 2019. "Home Cooking and Child Obesity in Japan: Results from the A-CHILD Study" Nutrients 11, no. 12: 2859. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11122859
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