FAMILY RESEMBLANCE IN ENERGY AND MACRONUTRIENT INTAKES - THE STANISLAS FAMILY STUDY

Background. There seems to be a consensus that family influences on di etary habits are important but few studies have addressed this issue d irectly, The purpose of this study was to determine if and how dietary intake aggregates within families. Methods. We examined the family ag gregation of energy intake and the proportion of protein, fat and carb ohydrate in the diet, estimated by a 3-day food consumption diary in 3 87 middle-class French families. Results. For energy and all macronutr ients, spouse-spouse and child-child correlations were higher than par ent-child correlations suggesting the minor contribution of genetics a nd the preponderant role of cultural and residual random environment, Variance component analysis confirmed the absence of genetic component for energy and all macronutrients and underlined the important role o f a cohabitational effect for parents. Cultural inheritance represente d 30-40% of dietary intake variance for children. Families who shared meals together more often had a lower residual random component. With the increasing number of meals eaten together (>45/week versus less th an or equal to 45/week), between-generation components increased by ab out 10% for fat and carbohydrate, while for protein intake, the betwee n-generation component for both parents (about 27%) and children (abou t 37%) remained unchanged. Conclusions. The general finding that dieta ry intake aggregates within families and that the individual behaviour s are greatly influenced by characteristics within the family unit suc h as the number of meals eaten together provides additional justificat ion for health promotion programmes that target the family as the unit for intervention.