Abstract
Mealtime surveys, food frequency questionnaires and quantitative ultrasound measurements of right calcareous bone were conducted from 2004 to 2006 on 280 female college students to investigate the effects of mealtime environment and food intake on bone mass. The data from this study show that students who had a good mealtime environment, such as family meals and at-home eating, ate more vegetables, fruits, meat and fish, while, students with a poor mealtime environment consumed more snack foods and soft drinks. Furthermore, those with the better mealtime environment and higher bone mass ate the most fish among all these students.
These results indicate that the better mealtime environment might contribute to the quality of diet. It seems important to have a diet containing protein from a variety of sources during adolescence to achieve higher bone mass.
