Low Energy Intake and Low Diet Quality on the Weekend Among US Schoolchildren

The absence of school meals on the weekend might adversely affect children's weekend eating and have implications for their health. We used one weekday and one weekend day of dietary recall data for 2376 schoolchildren in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES, 2003-2008) to estimate the prevalence of low energy intake and low diet quality and to examine their associations with financial and food resources. Low energy intake was equally prevalent on weekdays and weekend days (13.6% and 14.9%), as was low dietary quality (16.9% and 21.4%), and both were unrelated to measures of financial and food resources. Dietary recall data provided no evidence that a lack of school meals on the weekend was adversely related to dietary intake among school children.