Mei Jun Chan

National University of Singapore | NUS · Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health

Objective This study aimed to fill the current gap in the understanding of the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours (KAB) related to dietary sodium among adult residents in Singapore. Design A cross-sectional online survey was conducted between October to December 2020 on 955 participants selected through random sampling. Setting The survey was c...

Objective This study aimed to examine the intrapersonal, interpersonal, environmental and macrosystem influences on dietary behaviours among primary school children in Singapore. Design A qualitative interpretive approach was used in this study. Focus group discussions guided by the socio-ecological model (SEM), of which transcripts were analysed...

Purpose Establishing healthy lifestyle behaviours in primary school children is important, as these behaviours are likely to track into adulthood. This study aimed to explore the factors influencing physical activity (PA) in primary school children through their perspectives. Approach Eleven focus group discussions and one interview were conducted...

Background Web-based time-use diaries for schoolchildren are limited, and existing studies focus mostly on capturing physical activities and sedentary behaviors but less comprehensively on dietary behaviors. Objective This study aims to describe the development of My E-Diary for Activities and Lifestyle (MEDAL)—a self-administered, web-based time-u...

BACKGROUND Web-based time-use diaries for schoolchildren are limited and exiting studies focus mostly on capturing physical activities and sedentary behaviours, but less comprehensively on dietary behaviours. OBJECTIVE In this study, we described the development of MEDAL—a self-administered, web-based time-use application to assess diet and moveme...

Background: Food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) are often used to assess dietary intakes due to their ability to assess intake over extended periods, their low respondent burden, and their cost-effectiveness. A quantitative FFQ that includes locally appropriate food items for 5-year-old children in a multiethnic Asian population was developed, bu...

Parents' feeding practices have been shown to be associated with children's food intake and weight status, but little is known about feeding practices in Asian countries. This study used behavioral observation to explore the feeding practices of 201 mothers of 4.5 year-old children in Singapore during an ad libitum buffet lunch. Feeding practices w...

Revised subscales of the Children’s Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ) have been proposed to be more appropriate for assessing appetitive traits in Singaporean 3 year-olds, but the CEBQ has not yet been validated in older children in this population. The current study aimed to validate the CEBQ at ages 5 (n = 653) and 6 (n = 449) in the ethnicall...

Bidirectional studies between maternal feeding practices with subsequent child weight are limited, with no studies in Asian populations. In longitudinal analyses, we assessed the directionality of the associations between maternal feeding practices and body mass index (BMI) in preschoolers. Participants were 428 mother child dyads from the GUSTO (G...

Pearson’s correlations amongst the twelve maternal feeding practices from the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ). (DOCX)

Multivariate adjusted mean differences of fruit intake (g/day), vegetable intake (g/day), and wholegrain (g/day) intake across tertile categories of high, medium and low scores of maternal feeding practices at 5 years of age. (DOCX)

Unadjusted mean differences of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) (mL/day), sweet snacks (g/day), fast-foods (g/day) and fried foods intake (g/day) across tertile categories of high, medium and low scores of maternal feeding practices at 5 years of age. (DOCX)

Baseline characteristics of responders and non-responders in the GUSTO study. (DOCX)

Multivariate linear regression of maternal feeding practices across tertile categories of high, medium and low scores with BMI z-scores at 5 years of age 1. (DOCX)

Unadjusted mean differences of fruit intake (g/day), vegetable intake (g/day), and wholegrain (g/day) intake across categories of high, medium and low scores of maternal feeding practices at 5 years of age. (DOCX)

Multivariate adjusted mean differences of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) (mL/day), sweet snacks (g/day), fast-foods (g/day), and fried food intake (g/day) across tertile categories of high, medium and low scores of maternal feeding practices at 5 years of age. (DOCX)

Directed acyclic graph–diagram with maternal feeding practices as the exposure and food intake as an outcome. (PNG)

Background In Asia, little is known about how maternal feeding practices are associated with dietary intakes and body mass index (BMI) in preschoolers. Objective To assess the relationships between maternal feeding practices with dietary intakes and BMI in preschoolers in Asia using cross-sectional analysis in the GUSTO (Growing Up in Singapore To...

Previous research demonstrated that faster eating rates are linked with increased intake of energy during a meal. Here, we examined whether within‐meal parental feeding practices show cross‐sectional and prospective associations with children's oral processing behaviours and whether the previously demonstrated association between faster eating rate...

Objective: The association between maternal feeding practices and dietary intakes and body mass index (BMI) of Asian preschoolers is little known. The aim of this study was to examine this relation in a multiethnic Asian cohort in Singapore (GUSTO). Methods: Participants were mothers (n = 511) who completed the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Ques...

Previous research demonstrated that faster eating rates are linked with increased intake of energy during a meal. Here we examined whether within-meal parental feeding practices show cross-sectional and prospective associations with children’s oral processing behaviours, and whether the previously demonstrated association between faster eating rate...

Background/objectives: Eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) has been linked to obesity in adults and children. This study examined the stability of EAH in children between 4.5 and 6 years old, and associations with energy intake and portion selection, as well as cross-sectional and prospective associations with body composition. Methods: The pa...

Oral processing behaviours associated with faster eating rates have been consistently linked to increased energy intakes, but little is known about their links to children's appetitive traits. This study used the Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) to explore cross-sectional and prospective associations between parent-reported appetitive tr...

Faster eating rates are associated with increased energy intake, but little is known about the relationship between children’s eating rate, food intake and adiposity. We examined whether children who eat faster consume more energy and whether this is associated with higher weight status and adiposity. We hypothesised that eating rate mediates the r...

Recent findings confirm that faster eating rates support higher energy intakes within a meal and are associated with increased body weight and adiposity in children. The current study sought to identify the eating behaviours that underpin faster eating rates and energy intake in children, and to investigate their variations by weight status and oth...