U.S. Children's Food Portion Sizes and Meal Trends, 1977–2006

U.S. data from four nationally representative surveys of 31,337 children aged 2-18 years between 1977 and 2006. It examines trends in portion sizes and total meal energy for key foods like soft drinks, pizza, and burgers, and analyzes portion sizes by food source. The data was aggregated from surveys and published on the paperswithcode platform.

Use Cases

• Modeling trends in calorie intake from specific foods like pizza and soft drinks over a 30-year period.
• Analyzing the relationship between portion size increases at fast-food locations and total meal energy.
• Comparing the proportion of energy from foods like hamburgers versus pizzas within total eating occasions.

Strengths

• Data is based on four nationally representative surveys, suggesting a structured collection methodology.
• Includes a substantial sample of 31,337 children.
• Covers a long time range of nearly 30 years (1977–2006).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

paperswithcode

Collection Method

Aggregated from four nationally representative U.S. food intake surveys.

Time Range

1977–2006

Geography

United States