Eating behavior of preschool-age children during social distancing period due to COVID-19

The aim of the study was to investigate the eating behavior of preschool children during the social isolation period of the first wave of COVID-19 in Fortaleza, Ceará. This is a cross-sectional observational study, carried out with caregivers of preschool children aged from 2 to 6 years. The PENSE questionnaire (IBGE) was used to collect socio-economic data and the data referring to eating behavior was used the CEBQ. 286 parents (mother and father) and their children participated in the research, of which 53.8% were female. The preschoolers in the study constituted 5.2% of infant I, 9.8% infant II, 14.7% infant III, 20.6% infant IV, 23.1% infant V, 15.4% 1-year elementary school and 11.2% did not attend school. As for the education of most mothers, 83.9% completed higher education. Regarding the number of people who lived in the household, 44.4% lived with 4 people and 73.1% had 1 child. The highest mean values ​​are present in the dimension "Pleasure to eat" (EF) and "Response to satiety" (SR), while the lowest refer to the dimensions "About Emotional Intake" (EOE) and "Response to food" (FR). The statistical results of the “Food Fussiness” (FF) subscale point out important aspects about the selectivity in the sample of the present study, demonstrating a good tendency to picky eating. The dimension with the lowest mean was “Emotional Overeating”, demonstrating that when confined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, preschoolers still have EOE lower than all other subscales. It follows that children in preschool stage have presented a higher prevalence in subscales that are linked to food avoidance behavior.

See & Eat! Using E-books to Promote Vegetable Eating Among Preschoolers: Findings From an Italian Sample

Different strategies have been developed to help parents with introducing new or disliked vegetables. Nonetheless, many parents of preschoolers struggle against children's refusal to eat vegetables. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of e-books in promoting positive attitudes toward vegetables through repeated visual exposures. A total of 61 families with preschoolers joined the See & Eat study and received an e-book about one of two vegetables chosen from a list of 24. Parents provided ratings of children's willingness to taste, intake, and liking of the chosen vegetables before and after reading the e-book; parents also evaluated their children's food fussiness and their agreement with respect to three mealtime goals of the family. Using a 2 (vegetable: target or non-target) × 2 (time: pre-test or post-test) within-subjects analysis, results from 53 families revealed a significant increase in children's willingness to taste, intake, and liking at post-test of both target and non-target vegetables. Following a two-week parent-child e-book reading intervention, children's food fussiness and parents' endorsement of positive mealtime goals slightly but significantly increased. Results suggest that e-books are effective in encouraging healthy eating among preschoolers and that the positive effect of e-book reading can generalize to other vegetables.

Child Involvement in Meal Preparation and Grocery Shopping is Associated with Lower Levels of Food Fussiness Among Young Children

This study examined associations between child food involvement and food fussiness. Analyses used survey data from 62 children ages 1.5 to 5.9 years who participated in the Guelph Family Health Study Pilot. Overall involvement (β = -0.51, p = 0.02), involvement in meal preparation (β = -0.42, p = 0.009), and involvement in grocery shopping (β = -0.29, p = 0.04) were inversely associated with food fussiness. Experimental research including larger, more diverse samples is needed to test whether food involvement reduces food fussiness among young children. Novelty: • Our study identified significant, inverse associations between child food involvement and food fussiness

Aspectos sensoriais e a seletividade alimentar da criança com transtorno do espectro autista: um estudo de revisão integrativa

Introdução: O Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA) é considerado um transtorno do neurodesenvolvimento que afeta a comunicação social e comportamentos, que são restritos, persistentes ou estereotipados, incluindo as alterações no processamento sensorial, de modo hipo ou hiper-reativa. Essas disfunções sensoriais podem provocar problemas na alimentação, sendo a seletividade alimentar a mais comum em crianças com TEA, que é determinada pela rejeição alimentar, resistência ao novo e limitação no repertório alimentar. Objetivo: Identificar os aspectos sensoriais e sua interferência na seletividade alimentar das crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista. Métodos: Consiste em uma revisão integrativa, utilizando as seguintes bases de dados eletrônica: Lilacs (Literaturac Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde), PubMed (U.S. National Library of Medicine) e SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) através de cruzamento dos seguintes descritores, nos idiomas português e inglês: Seletividade alimentar/ Food Fussiness; Comportamento alimentar/Feeding Behavior; Transtorno do Espetro Autista/Autism Spectrum Disorder; Autismo/Autism; Autismo infantil/Autistic Disorder, utilizando o operador booleano AND. Resultados: Obteve-se um universo de 818 artigos, após os critérios elegíveis foram selecionados 39 artigos. Por fim, após leitura dos artigos na íntegra, resultou em 9 artigos compondo o estudo. Conclusão: A literatura científica demonstra que as crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista apresentam alterações sensoriais, como: sensibilidade sensorial oral, tátil e olfativa. Tendo como consequência maiores recusas alimentares. Porém, ainda são encontrados poucos artigos.

Associations between Food Preferences, Food Approach, and Food Avoidance in a Polish Adolescents’ COVID-19 Experience (PLACE-19) Study Population

Food preferences are among the strongest predictors of the food choices of adolescents. These are associated with appetitive traits (food approach and avoidance) to some extent. However, no research has been conducted so far analyzing the association between food preferences and appetitive traits of adolescents. The aim of this study was to evaluate the associations between food preferences and appetitive traits in adolescents (aged 15–20 years) within the Polish Adolescents’ COVID-19 Experience (PLACE-19) Study population. The PLACE-19 Study was carried out in a population-based sample of 2448 secondary school students sampled across the country (random quota sampling). Food preferences (including the preference for vegetables, fruit, meat/fish, dairy, snacks, and starches) of the adolescents were assessed using the validated Food Preference Questionnaire (FPQ) while their appetitive traits (hunger, food responsiveness, emotional overeating, enjoyment of food, satiety responsiveness, emotional undereating, food fussiness, slowness in eating) were assessed using the validated Adult Eating Behavior Questionnaire (AEBQ). The k-means clustering was performed to identify the homogenous clusters of respondents based on their preferences, and linear regression was performed to determine the relationship between food preferences and appetitive traits with a model adjusted for sex and age. Based on their preferences, three homogenous clusters of respondents were defined: low-preferring respondents (low preference for all food categories), respondents preferring snacking foods (low preference for all food categories, except for fruit and snacks), and high-preferring respondents (high preference for all food categories). The low-preferring respondents showed the lowest values for all appetitive traits (p = 0.0008), as well as the lowest total score (p = 0.0001), except for food fussiness, for which they showed the highest value (p = 0.0008). All preference scores were positively associated with traits such as hunger, food responsiveness, enjoyment of food, and emotional under-eating, while negatively associated with food fussiness (all p < 0.05). The largest amount of variance was observed for preference for dairy (14.6%; R2 = 0.146, p = 0.008) and snacks with respect to enjoyment of food (16.2%; R2 = 0.162, p = 0.008), for vegetable with respect to food fussiness (22%; R2 = 0.220, p = 0.008), and for meat/fish with respect to enjoyment of food (19.9%; R2 = 0.199, p = 0.008) and food fussiness combined (19.1%; R2 = 0.191, p = 0.008). These results support the association of food preferences with both food approach traits and food avoidance traits.

Complementary Feeding Methods—A Review of the Benefits and Risks

Complementary feeding methods have the potential to not only ensure a diet of nutritional adequacy but also promote optimal food-related behaviours and skills. While the complementary feeding practice known as baby-led weaning (BLW) has gained popularity, evidence supporting the potential benefits and/or risks for infant growth, development, and health warrants consideration. A review of 29 studies was conducted with findings indicating that parents who implement BLW typically have higher levels of education, breastfeed for longer, and differ in other personality traits. Fear of choking was an important factor in parents’ decision not to implement BLW; however, this fear was not supported by the literature. Benefits of BLW included lower food fussiness, higher food enjoyment, lower food responsiveness, and higher satiety responsiveness. While this profile of eating behaviours confers a reduced obesity risk, few studies have examined the relationship between BLW and infant growth robustly. BLW does not seem to increase the risk of inadequate zinc or iron intake; however, emphasis needs to be given to ensuring adequate intake of these micronutrients among all infants. A better understanding of the impacts of BLW is needed to inform evidence-based recommendations to support and guide parents in complementary feeding methods.

HUBUNGAN FUSSY EATING DAN EARLY CHILDHOOD CARIES

Latar Belakang: Fussy Eating merupakan gangguan makan yang umum terjadi pada anak tetapi memilki dampak buruk bagi kesehatan, termasuk kesehatan gigi dan mulut. Early Childhood Caries (ECC) adalah penyakit jaringan keras gigi yang paling banyak terjadi pada anak dengan prevalensi mencapai 90% (Riskesdas, 2018) . Tujuan: peneltian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui hubungan Fussy Eating dan Early Chidhhood Caries (ECC) pada anak. Metode: penelitian ini merupakan penelitian observasional dengan desain cross sectional. Pengambilan sampel dilakukan purposive sampling dengan jumlah sampel sebanyak 165 orang berusia 3-5 tahun beserta ibunya. Children Eating Behaviour Qutionnaire (CEBQ) subskala Food Fussiness digunakan untuk mengukur Fussy Eating pada anak. ECC diukur dengan index def-t. Analisis data menggunakan uji chi-square. Hasil: Prevalensi anak dengan Fussy Eating adalah 50,9%. Terdapat hubungan bermakna antara Fussy Eating dan kejadian ECC pada anak (p-value = 0,010; OR = 2,380; 95% CI 1,273-4,450). Kesimpulan: Fussy Eating berkontribuasi dalam kejadian ECC.