The Discovery of Data-Driven Temporal Dietary Patterns and a Validation of Their Description Using Energy and Time Cut-Offs

Data-driven temporal dietary patterning (TDP) methods were previously developed. The objectives were to create data-driven temporal dietary patterns and assess concurrent validity of energy and time cut-offs describing the data-driven TDPs by determining their relationships to BMI and waist circumference (WC). The first day 24-h dietary recall timing and amounts of energy for 17,915 U.S. adults of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2007–2016 were used to create clusters representing four TDPs using dynamic time warping and the kernel k-means clustering algorithm. Energy and time cut-offs were extracted from visualization of the data-derived TDPs and then applied to the data to find cut-off-derived TDPs. The strength of TDP relationships with BMI and WC were assessed using adjusted multivariate regression and compared. Both methods showed a cluster, representing a TDP with proportionally equivalent average energy consumed during three eating events/day, associated with significantly lower BMI and WC compared to the other three clusters that had one energy intake peak/day at 13:00, 18:00, and 19:00 (all p < 0.0001). Participant clusters of the methods were highly overlapped (>83%) and showed similar relationships with obesity. Data-driven TDP was validated using descriptive cut-offs and hold promise for obesity interventions and translation to dietary guidance.