The three pie charts illustrate the illustrate the average percentages of three potentially unhealthy nutrients if consumed in excessive amounts – sodium, saturated fats, and added sugar – in typical meals in the USA. The data is categorized into four meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.
Overall, it is evident that dinners contribute to the largest proportion of all the nutrients intakes except added sugar, where they are the second largest. Conversely, Americans tend to eat less nutrients for breakfast as opposed to other meals.
Notably, while dinner predominates the sodium intake of Americans with more than 40 percent of contribution, snacks and breakfast contribute minimally to sodium consumption with identical figures (14%). Lunch, on the other hand, causes just under one third of overall sodium intake in the US. Saturated fat is also consumed mostly at dinner with 37% of contribution, followed by lunch, as in sodium consumption, with a moderate contribution of one forth. Even though snacks and breakfast share the smallest proportion, unlike in sodium, the proportion of snacks is larger than that of breakfast, with 21% and 16%, respectively.
The largest percentage in terms of added sugar intake, unlike the other two nutrients mentioned above, is consumed from snack, accounting for 42 percent. The second largest contributor is dinner (23 percent), which is followed by lunch with 19 percent. Similarly, other types of meals, breakfast contributes minimally to added sugar consumption, constituting to only 16 percent.