[Changes in vegetable consumption frequency at breakfast among infants and parents, and association between these...

Objectives　Insufficient vegetable intake in children poses a public health challenge. This study investigated the frequency of vegetable consumption at breakfast and examined its association with vegetable consumption at breakfast among parents using longitudinal data from Japan.Methods　Longitudinal data were obtained from infant health checkups, including parental questionnaires, conducted at four months, one and a half years, and three years of age in Obu City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. Among 1,053 children who underwent all three health checkups between 2019 and 2023, 896 children who provided valid responses were included in the analysis. These analyses determined vegetable consumption frequency at breakfast at three years of age for high (≥4 days/week) and low (≤3 days/week) frequency consumption groups. The exposure variable was vegetable consumption frequency at breakfast for the parents at each time point. Parental responses were divided into high- and low-frequency groups, and four trends were defined; maintained high frequency, decreased, increased, and maintained low frequency. Poisson regression analyses were conducted to calculate the prevalence ratios (PR) of parental trends associated with children's high-frequency consumption at three years after adjusting for potential confounding factors. Separate analyses were conducted for the parents.Results　Among the 896 children, 23.2% exhibited high-frequency consumption at three years of age and, a decrease from 47.8% at one and a half years. The proportions of mothers and fathers exhibiting high consumption were 30.0% and 19.5% (four months), 26.2% and 21.8% (one and a half years), and 25.4% and 19.0% (three years), respectively. Poisson regression analysis revealed that for mothers, compared with low frequency maintenance, high frequency maintenance (adjusted PR [95% confidence interval]; 4.49 [3.25-6.22]) and increased (4.91 [3.47-6.93]) trends were associated with high frequency consumption by children at three years. Similar associations were observed for high frequency maintenance (2.77 [2.10-3.65]) and increased (3.06 [2.29-4.09]) trends among fathers.Conclusion　Vegetable consumption frequency at breakfast among 3-year-old children decreased significantly from consumption at 1.5 years of age and was associated with mothers' vegetable consumption. As age three marks the completion of weaning and transition toward typical home-provided meals; promoting improvements in mothers' dietary habits before weaning could improve breakfast vegetable intake among children.