Dietary patterns: are there differences between children and adolescents?

Objective: To identify dietary patterns of children and adolescents from public schools and their relationship with age, gender, city of residence and socioeconomic class. Methods: Cross-sectional study with children and adolescents (aged five to 19 years) from 10 public schools. The Food Consumption Markers Form, recommended by the Brazilian Food and Nutrition Monitoring System, was used to identify dietary patterns through cluster analysis. The Pearson's chi-square test, considering significance at p <= 0.05, was used to evaluate the relationship between dietary patterns and age group, gender, socioeconomic class and city of residence. Results: The final sample included 631 students. Five dietary patterns were identified: bean/milk/yogurt (23.3%; n = 147), restricted (22.7%; n = 143), healthy (22.0%; n = 139), Brazilian processed (17.4%; n = 110) and mixed (14.5%; n = 92). The healthy pattern was positively associated to lower age (< 10 years, children) and the restricted pattern to adolescence, with p < 0.001. Dietary patterns were not associated with the other variables. Conclusions: Five dietary patterns were identified. The healthy pattern was positively associated to lower age and the restricted pattern to adolescence.