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Family resemblance in breakfast energy intake: the Stanislas Family Study

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 56, pages 1011–1019 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

Background: There seems to be a consensus that family influences on dietary habits are important. However, no data relative to breakfast have been published yet.

Objective: To investigate whether and how breakfast energy intake aggregates within French families.

Design: A total of 398 families of the Stanislas Family Study who filled in a 3 day food consumption diary were selected. Absolute and relative breakfast energy intakes (BEI in kcal/day and RBEI in percentage of daily intake, respectively) were both studied.

Results: By using a variance component analysis, no genetic influence was shown in family aggregation of both BEI and RBEI. Intra-generation common environmental contribution to total phenotypic variance of BEI and RBEI was higher than inter-generation; both were increased with frequency of sharing breakfast. Furthermore frequency of sharing breakfast contributed to increase family resemblance in breakfast energy intake, particularly in offspring for BEI and RBEI, and in spouses for RBEI. Smoking habits, alcohol consumption, BMI or physical activity were related to family resemblance, but after adjustment on each factor degrees of resemblance were almost unchanged.

Conclusion: General findings of this study were that family aggregation in breakfast absolute and relative energy intakes was significant within Stanislas families. Family resemblance depended on inter- and intra-generation components and was modified by the number of shared breakfasts. Our study confirmed that familial habits act on family resemblance in both absolute and relative breakfast energy intakes, so that family should be a favorite unit for health and diet promotion programs.

Sponsorship: Kellogg's PA, France.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to families who participated to the Stanislas Cohort and to the management, reception and preclinic staff of the Center for Preventive Medicine of Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy (France). We especially thank Sylvie Pechine for the collection of food intake data, Maryvonne Chaussard and Chantal Lafaurie for the family recruitment, and Edith Lecomte and Jean-Michel Vauthier for their help during this study. We would also like to thank David Trégouët (INSERM U 525, Paris, France) for providing the program package of familial correlation computation. The Stanislas Family Study was supported by funds from Roche Diagnostics, Bayer Pharma, Beckman Coulter, Biomérieux, Merck. Partial funding was also received from Kellogg's, Daiichi, Dade-Behring, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Sebia, Johnson and Johnson.

Author information

Author notes

  1. B Herbeth: Guarantor: B Herbeth.

  2. S Billon, A Lluch, R Guéguen, AM Berthier, G Siest and B Herbeth: Contributors: All authors have contributed to the execution, interpretation and reporting of this study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. INSERM U525 and Centre de Médecine Préventive, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    S Billon, A Lluch, R Guéguen, G Siest & B Herbeth

  2. Kellogg's PA, Rosny-sous-Bois cedex, France

    AM Berthier

Authors
  1. S Billon
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  2. A Lluch
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  3. R Guéguen
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  5. G Siest
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  6. B Herbeth
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to B Herbeth.

Appendix: variance components according to the number of shared breakfasts

Appendix: variance components according to the number of shared breakfasts

Family resemblance in BEI (Table A1)

Table 4 Variance components (±s.d.) and familial correlations of BEI, according to the number of shared breakfast per weeka
Full size table

First of all, model A1 included σ2C and σ2E decomposed according to the index of shared breakfasts (<2.1 or ≥2.1) as described previously (see Materials and methods). The pertinence of those decompositions was checked as follows. In model A2, the hypothesis of equality of common environmental covariance between parents and between a parent and an offspring (σ2Cpp=σ2Cpo) was tested. The environmental covariance between offspring remaining higher; this model was not significantly different from model A1. σ2E was considered different for a parent than for an offspring (σ2Ep=σ2Eo; P=0.0400, data not shown), all those parameters depending on the index of shared breakfasts. Then the effect of frequency of sharing breakfast on this variance decomposition was tested in models A3 and A4: σ2C components did not depend on the index of shared breakfasts (model A3 was acceptable), while σ2E components did (model A4 had to be rejected).

Between-sibling correlation increased with increased number of shared breakfasts (0.38 vs 0.47), whereas spouses and parent–offspring correlations were quite similar (from 0.24 to 0.27) and increased slightly when index of shared breakfasts was greater than 2.1.

While BEI adjustment for smoking habits (only on parent BEI), physical activity, alcohol consumption and BMI was significant for each of those factors (P<0.001), family correlations (as variance components) were almost unchanged, ie plus or minus 0.01 unit (data not shown).

Family resemblance in RBEI (Table A2)

Table 5 Variance components (±s.d.) and familial correlations of RBEI, according to the number of shared breakfast per week.a
Full size table

In model B1, RBEI variance decomposition was the same as for BEI variance (model A1). Model B2 tested the hypothesis of equality between σ2Ep and σ2Eo. In model B3, the absence of influence of the index of shared breakfasts on σ2C was tested. Model B4 tested the hypothesis that common environmental components between parents and between offspring were equal to an unique intra-generation common environmental component. Then the effect of the index of shared breakfast on σ2E was tested in model B5. Finally the best parsimonious model (model B4) included: an inter-generation common environmental component, an intra-generation common environmental component and a specific environmental component, which one depending on the index of shared breakfasts. Decomposition was quite different from decomposition of BEI variance. Children and spouses had the highest degree of resemblance particularly when the index of shared breakfasts was greater or equal to 2.1 (0.43 vs 0.35). Parent-offspring correlations slightly decreased particularly when the index of shared breakfasts was greater than 2.1 (0.25 vs 0.21).

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Billon, S., Lluch, A., Guéguen, R. et al. Family resemblance in breakfast energy intake: the Stanislas Family Study. Eur J Clin Nutr 56, 1011–1019 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1601440

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