[Dietary patterns among preschoolers and its association with education level of the parents]

Objective: To identify the dietary patterns among preschoolers in Ma'anshan, and to investigate its association with the education levels of the parents. Methods: A total of 16 439 children aged 3-6 were recruited from 91 kindergartens in Ma'anshan city to participate in the study. Food frequency and socio-demographic information were collected through questionnaire survey. Dietary data was collected using a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), and principal-components analysis was used to derive the dietary patterns. Ordinal multinomial logistic regression was employed to explore the association between the education level of parents and the dietary patterns. Results: Five dietary patterns- "processed" , "beverage" , "snack" , "protein" and "vegetarian" were identified. Data showed that the total variance was 48.02% and the cumulative proportion of processed reached 24.78%. Low educational level of the father was positively associated with both "beverage" (OR=1.36, 95%CI: 1.15-1.63) and "snack" dietary pattern (OR=1.21, 95%CI: 1.01-1.43). Low educational level of mother was positively associated with the "processed" (OR=1.31, 95%CI: 1.09-1.57) and "beverage" dietary pattern (OR=1.48, 95%CI: 1.23-1.77), and showed a negative correlation with "protein" (OR=0.62, 95%CI: 0.52-0.74) and "vegetarian" dietary pattern (OR=0.72, 95%CI: 0.60-0.86). Conclusion: Findings from this study showed that preschoolers in Ma'anshan tend to choose unhealthy dietary pattern. Dietary pattern was directly influenced by the parents, and especially the education level of the mothers.