Objective To identify dietary patterns and to investigate their associations with dietary micronutrient inadequacy among Chinese children aged 3-12 years old. Methods Data of China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS) were used for anal. Dietary patterns were derived using factor anal. with a principal component method. Nutrient adequacy ratio(NAR) and percentage of dietary nutrient inadequacy were used to assess dietary nutritional status. The logistic regression model was employed to explore the association of nutrient inadequacy with dietary pattern score. Results Two dietary patterns, "animal & fruit" pattern and "staple" pattern were identified for Chinese children age 3-12 years old. After adjusting confounders, the "animal & fruit" pattern was significantly neg. associated with overall micronutrient inadequacy(OMI). High compliance with the pattern decreased the risk of dietary protein inadequacy and OMI by 90% and 83%, resp. While under the "staple" pattern, mean adequacy ratio(MAR) had the trend of increasing with decreasing pattern score. Chinese children who were high or medium compliance with "staple" pattern had higher risk of OMI, which was 1.67 times and 2 times of those in low compliance group, resp. Conclusion Children's nutrition status is closely related to the dietary pattern, indicating that the risk of hidden hunger could be reduced through improving dietary pattern for children. [ACTA NUTRIMENTA SINICA, 2021, 43(3):218-222]