The cross-sectional relationships between consumption of takeaway food, eating meals outside the home and diet quality in British adolescents

Objective: The present study aimed to evaluate the association of frequency of consuming takeaway meals and meals out with diet quality of UK adolescents.Design: The Diet Quality Index for Adolescents (DQI-A) tool was used to assess diet quality, where adolescents' food intake was based on 4d diary records obtained from the UK cross-sectional National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) rolling programme Years 1-6. Models included confounders.Setting: The DQI-A relies on three components, specifically diet quality, diversity and equilibrium, which reflect the degree of adherence of an adolescent's diet with food-based dietary guidelines.Participants: British (n 2045) adolescents aged 11-18 years.Results: Mean diet quality score for all adolescents was 20·4 % (overall DQI-A score range: -33 to 100 %). After adjusting for age, gender and equivalised household income, DQI-A% score was higher for low and moderate takeaway consumers by 7·4 % (95 % CI 5·5, 9·2; P<0·01) and 3·5 % (95 % CI 1·9, 5·1; P<0·01), respectively, v. frequent consumers. Significant differences were also observed between low, moderate and frequent takeaway consumers among all DQI-A components and sub-components (P<0·05), except for the diet adequacy sub-component (DAx). Results for frequent consumption of meals out were similar but attenuated and not statistically significant for individual components before or after adjusting for confounders.Conclusions: Frequent consumption of takeaway meals may have a negative impact on adolescents' diet quality and therefore policies to reduce the intake of takeaways should be considered in this age group.