Little is known on skipping breakfast and a meal at school, especially considered together. The study identified nutrition knowledge-related, lifestyle (including diet quality, physical activity, and screen time) and socioeconomic correlates of skipping breakfast and a meal at school, considered together or alone and assessed the association of skipping these meals with adiposity markers in Polish teenagers. The sample consisted of 1566 fourth and fifth grade elementary school students (11–13 years). The study was designed as a cross-sectional study. Data related to the consumption of selected food items and meals, physical activity, screen time, sociodemographic factors, and nutrition knowledge (all self-reported) were collected (in 2015–2016) with a short form of a food frequency questionnaire. Respondents reported the usual consumption of breakfast (number of days/week) and a meal or any food eaten at school (number of school days/week) labelled as ‘a meal at school’. The measurements of body weight, height, and waist circumference were taken. BMI-for-age ≥25 kg/m² was considered as a marker of overweight/obesity (general adiposity), while waist-to-height ratio ≥0.5 as a marker of central obesity (central adiposity). A multivariate logistic regression was applied to verify the association between variables. A total of 17.4% of teenagers frequently skipped breakfast (4–7 days/week), 12.9% frequently skipped a meal at school (3–5 school days/week), while 43.6% skipped both of these meals a few times a week. Predictors of skipping breakfast and/or a meal at school were female gender, age over 12 years, urban residence, lower family affluence, lower nutrition knowledge, higher screen time, and lower physical activity. In comparison to “never-skippers,” “frequent breakfast skippers” were more likely to be overweight/obese (odds ratio, OR 1.89; 95% confidence interval, 95%CI 1.38, 2.58) and centrally obese (OR 1.63; 95%CI 1.09, 2.44), while skippers a few times a week of both of these meals were more likely to be overweight/obese (OR 1.37; 95%CI 1.06, 1.78). Concluding, we estimated that a large percentage of Polish teenagers (approx. 44%) usually skipped both breakfast and a meal at school a few times a week. Similar predictors of skipping breakfast and predictors of skipping a meal at school were identified. Special attention should be paid to promoting shortening screen time and increasing physical activity and teenagers’ nutrition knowledge which are relatively easily modifiable correlates. The study shows that skipping both of these meals a few times a week was associated with general adiposity and also strengthens previous evidence showing the association of frequent skipping breakfast with general and central adiposity.

The sustainability of education focused on improving the dietary and lifestyle behaviours of teenagers has not been extensively studied. The aim of this study was to determine the sustainability of diet-related and lifestyle-related school-based education on sedentary and active lifestyle, diet quality and body composition of Polish pre-teenagers in a medium-term follow-up study. An education-based intervention study was carried out on 464 students aged 11–12 years (educated/control group: 319/145). Anthropometric measurements were taken and body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-height ratios (WHtR) were calculated, both at the baseline and after nine months. Dietary data from a short-form food frequency questionnaire (SF-FFQ4PolishChildren) were collected. Two measures of lifestyle (screen time, physical activity) and two diet quality scores (pro-healthy, pHDI, and non-healthy, nHDI) were established. After nine months, in the educated group (vs. control) a significantly higher increase was found in nutrition knowledge score (mean difference of the change: 1.8 points) with a significantly higher decrease in physical activity (mean difference of the change: −0.20 points), nHDI (−2.3% points), the z-WHtR (−0.18 SD), and the z-waist circumference (−0.13 SD). Logistic regression modelling with an adjustment for confounders revealed that after nine months in the educated group (referent: control), the chance of adherence to a nutrition knowledge score of at least the median was over 2 times higher, and that of the nHDI category of at least the median was significantly lower (by 35%). In conclusion, diet-related and lifestyle-related school-based education from an almost one-year perspective can reduce central adiposity in pre-teenagers, despite a decrease in physical activity and the tendency to increase screen time. Central adiposity reduction can be attributed to the improvement of nutrition knowledge in pre-teenagers subjected to the provided education and to stopping the increase in unhealthy dietary habits.

The aim of the study was to assess the reproducibility of a short-form, multicomponent dietary questionnaire (SF-FFQ4PolishChildren) in Polish children and adolescents. The study involved 437 children (6–10 years old) and 630 adolescents (11–15 years old) from rural and urban areas of Poland. The self-administered questionnaire was related to nutrition knowledge, dietary habits, active/sedentary lifestyle, self-reported weight and height, and socioeconomic data. The questionnaire was completed with a two-week interval—twice by parents for their children (test and retest for children), twice by adolescents themselves (adolescent’s test and retest) and once by adolescents’ parents (parent’s test). The strength of agreement measured using the kappa statistic was interpreted as follows: 0–0.20 slight, 0.21–0.40 fair, 0.41–0.60 moderate, 0.61–0.80 good, and 0.81–1.00 excellent. Regarding the frequency of consumption of food items and meals, kappa statistics were 0.46–0.81 (the lowest: fruit/mixed fruit and vegetable juices; the highest: Energy drinks) in test–retest for children, 0.30–0.54 (fruit/mixed fruit and vegetable juices; breakfast, respectively) in adolescent’s test–retest, 0.27–0.56 (the lowest: Sweets, fruit, dairy products; the highest: Breakfast) in adolescent’s test and parent’s test. Lower kappa statistics were found for more frequently consumed foods (juices, fruit, vegetables), higher kappa statistics were found for rarely consumed foods (energy drinks, fast food). Across study groups, kappa statistics for diet quality scores were 0.31–0.55 (pro-healthy diet index, pHDI) and 0.26–0.45 (non-healthy diet index, nHDI), for active/sedentary lifestyle items they were 0.31–0.72, for components of the Family Affluence Scale (FAS) they were 0.55–0.93, for BMI categories (based on self-reported weight and height) they were 0.64–0.67, for the nutrition knowledge (NK) of adolescents the kappa was 0.36, for the nutrition knowledge of children’s parents it was 0.62. The Spearman’s correlations for diet quality scores were 0.52–0.76 (pHDI) and 0.53–0.83 (nHDI), for screen time score they were 0.45–0.78, for physical activity score they were 0.51–0.77, for the FAS score they were 0.90–0.93, and for the NK score they were 0.68–0.80. The questionnaire can be recommended to evaluate dietary and lifestyle behaviors among children and adolescents.

The role of the family environment in regards to dairy products and dietary calcium in the context of obesity is not fully understood. The aim of the study was to investigate the association among dairy-related dietary patterns (DDPs), dietary calcium, body weight and composition in mothers and daughters. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey within the MODAF Project. A total sample of 712 pairs of mothers ( 1 standard deviation (SD), WC > 80 cm, body fat > 32%, WHtR > 0.5, BMI = 25–29.9 kg/m² or BMI ≥ 30 kg/m² by 44–67% when compared to low-dairy low-calcium DDP (288 mg/day). In mothers per 100 mg/day of dietary calcium, the chance of z-WC > 1SD, WC > 80 cm, z-WHtR > 1SD, WHtR > 0.5 cm, BMI = 25 to 29.9 kg/m² or BMI ≥ 30 kg/m² decreased by 5–9%. In correspondence analysis, a clear association was found between mothers’ and daughters’ low-dairy low-calcium DDPs and upper categories of z-WC (>1 SDs). This study reinforces evidence of the similarity between mothers and daughters in dairy-related dietary patterns and provides a new insight on the adverse relation between low-dairy low-calcium dietary patterns and obesity. It was found that diets containing various dairy products with suboptimal dietary calcium content may be recommended in obesity prevention.