Dietary patterns and body mass index in children with autism and typically developing children

Abstract

To determine whether dietary patterns (juice and sweetened non-dairy beverages, fruits, vegetables, fruits & vegetables, snack foods, and kid’s meals) and associations between dietary patterns and body mass index (BMI) differed between 53 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 58 typically developing children, ages 3 to 11, multivariate regression models including interaction terms were used. Children with ASD were found to consume significantly more daily servings of sweetened beverages (2.6 versus 1.7, p=0.03) and snack foods (4.0 versus 3.0, p=0.01) and significantly fewer daily servings of fruits and vegetables (3.1 versus 4.4, p=0.006) than typically developing children. There was no evidence of statistical interaction between any of the dietary patterns and BMI z-score with autism status. Among all children, fruits and vegetables (p=0.004) and fruits alone (p=0.005) were positively associated with BMI z-score in our multivariate models. Children with ASD consume more energy-dense foods than typically developing children; however, in our sample, only fruits and vegetables were positively associated with BMI z-score.

Impact of a Smarter Lunchroom intervention on food selection and consumption among adolescents and young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in a residential school setting

“…medication use, cognitive impairments, eating problems) (14)(15)(16) . Compared with typically developing peers, youth with I/DD, including children with autism spectrum disorder, consume fewer daily servings of fruits and vegetables (17,18) and these outcomes have a positive association with lower family income (18) . Schools represent ideal environments for public health interventions to improve population-level dietary patterns of children and adolescents (19) .…”

Food Selectivity in Obese Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Several studies have reported that food selectivity may contribute to obesity in children with ASD [10]. Obesity is estimated to have a prevalence rate of 30% in children with ASD compared to 24% of their typically developing peers [11,12].…”

“…Two longitudinal studies have shown that children with ASD have continued with similar food selectivity years later and in one case, decreased food repertoire [3,4]. Previous research has focused on children with ASD and food selectivity with mean ages ranging from four to eight years [1][2][3][4]7,10,13] with few addressing adolescents exclusively. Clearly, there exists a need to investigate food selectivity in adolescents with ASD.…”

Adaptive Functioning and Feeding Behavior: Key Targets in Autism Management

“…Children with ASD consume significantly more servings of juice and sweetened non-dairy beverages and snacks foods and significantly fewer servings of vegetables compared to typically developing children [10]. Some of the consistent factors in the food selectivity relate to food textures, color and flavor.…”