Meal planning is associated with food variety, diet quality and body weight status in a large sample of French adults

Table 1 Sociodemographic, economic and lifestyle characteristics of meal planners vs. non-meal planners (N = 40,554 - NutriNet-Santé 2014)

	Non-meal planners	Meal planners^a
	N = 17,271	N = 23,283
	% or means ± SD	% or means ± SD	P ^b
Sex			*0.0011*
Men	22.45	21.09
Women	77.55	78.91
Age			*0.031*
18-30	7.24	6.80
30-50	33.56	33.66
50-65	35.80	35.07
> 65	23.40	24.46
Educational level			*<0.0001*
Up to secondary	34.79	31.84
Some college	30.85	31.23
University degree	34.18	36.79
Missing data	0.18	0.15
Monthly income per household (€/UC^c)			*<0.0001*
<1,200	11.50	9.17
1,200–1,800	22.22	20.48
1,800–2,700	25.18	25.10
>2,700	26.63	31.09
Missing data	14.48	14.16
Presence of child in the household			0.76
No	26.84	26.97
Yes	73.16	73.03
History of dieting to lose weight during the past year			*0.0003*
No	68.52	66.79
Yes	29.95	31.36
Missing data	1.53	1.84
Physical activity level			*<0.0001*
High	30.13	32.32
Intermediate	35.52	37.15
Low	21.26	19.32
Missing data	13.09	11.21
mPNNS-GS^d	7.84 ± 1.35	7.95 ± 1.34	*<0.0001*
Food variety score^e	141.43 ± 27.13	144.49 ± 26.01	*<0.0001*
BMI			*<0.0001*
<25	64.85	68.15
[25–30]	24.27	23.33
≥30	10.88	8.53

Boldface indicates statistical significance
^aMeal planners are individuals who “plan ahead the foods that will be eaten for the next few days”
^bOn the basis of Student’s t or chi-square tests as appropriate
^c CU: Household Consumer Units. One CU is attributed for the first adult in the household, 0.5 for other persons aged 14 or older and 0.3 for children under 14
^dmPNNS-GS: adherence to nutritional guidelines score, based on 24-h dietary records, range 0–13.5
^eFood variety score: based on the food frequency questionnaire, range 0–240

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