Background: Main meals which include breakfast, lunch, and dinner is crucial to ensure healthy growth and development of an adolescent. This study aims to determine the prevalence of main meals intake and its association with body weight among adolescents in Malaysia. Materials and Methods: Data were obtained from the Adolescent Health Survey (ANS) 2017. This survey successfully recruited about 40,000 students from standard 4 to form 5 from randomly selected school in Malaysia. A set questions for habitual meal pattern practice were asked, and anthropometric, which is weight and height were also taken. Weighted sample analysis was applied as the data is representative of the population. Result: Prevalence of daily consumption of breakfast, lunch and dinner among Malaysian adolescent was 30.0%, 47.7% and 52.8% respectively. About 10.1% of adolescent did not take breakfast at all in a week, and it was highest compared to lunch (2.9%) and dinner (3.1%). The prevalence of entire week breakfast skipper was higher in urban (11.2%) compared to rural (8.8%) and among female (11.1%) compared to male (9.1%). Logistic regression after adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics found those who skipped dinner, breakfast and lunch were significantly associated with overweight or obese by the odds 1.33, 1.17 and 1.16, respectively. Conclusion: At this rapid growth phase, adolescents must be avoiding to skip main meals as it associated with overweight and obesity. Family, school and other related agencies must play a role in providing proper schedule and environment for adolescents to ensure they are not skipping any main meals.

Introduction: Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFAs) play an important role in developing cognitive function in children, especially Docosahexanoic Acid (DHA). However, there is no suitable dietary assessment tool to assess DHA intake among Malaysian children. Thus, this study assessed the validity of an interviewer-administered semi-quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) for estimating DHA intake among Malay school children in the Sepang District. Methods: Thirty 12-year-old Malay children (13 boys and 17 girls) were recruited through purposive sampling. Their DHA intake for one month duration was assessed using a 30-food item FFQ and validated against a 3-day food record. Results: The majority of the subjects (70%) had normal body mass index, 6.7% were overweight, 16.7% obese, whilst the rest were in the thin category. The reliability of FFQ was found to be good with a Cronbach’s α coefficient value of 0.815. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test indicated no significant difference in mean intake between the two assessment methods. Significant and strong correlation between FFQ and the 3-day food record was found for total omega-3 PUFAs (r=0.812)and DHA (r=0.839) using both methods. Bland Altman analysis exhibited no apparent systematic bias between the two methods for DHA and total omega-3 PUFAs intake, whilst a quartile analysis assigned 73.3% of the subjects into the same quartile. Conclusion: The FFQ was found to be valid in estimating DHA intake among Malay school children, and it is recommended that its validity be tested on other ethnic population groups.