The association between maternal features and nutritional problems in children with autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Objective In the literature, there is almost no data on the relationship between autistic children’s nutritional problems and their mothers’ demographic and nutritional characteristics. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate whether there was a relationship between maternal features and nutritional problems in autistic children. Methods This study was conducted with the participation of 58 autistic children (6-19 years) and their mothers. Descriptive data were obtained with a general questionnaire. For the evaluation of children’s nutritional status, anthropometric measurements and 24-hour dietary recall were used. Also, the Brief Autism Mealtime Behavior Inventory and ORTO-15 questionnaires were used to evaluate the meal behavior of children and orthorexia tendency of mothers, respectively. Results No significant correlation was found between the Brief Autism Mealtime Behavior Inventory scores in children of mothers with high and low orthorexia tendency. There were also no statistically significant differences between the children of mothers with high and low educational level in terms of Brief Autism Mealtime Behavior Inventory scores. Only the dietary vitamin B6 intake was significantly higher in the children of mothers with high educational level. Maternal age was associated with the dietary energy and protein intake, unlike, maternal orthorexia tendency was not associated with the nutritional status and meal behavior of children. The abdominal pain experience in the last one month was found to be significantly higher in the children of employed mothers than children of unemployed mothers. Conclusion It is thought that the maternal characteristics are not effective on meal behavior in children and also maternal age and educational status have a very limited effect on the nutritional status of children.

Seletividade alimentar e perfil sociodemográfico de crianças com transtorno do espectro autista de um movimento social de Macaé, Rio de Janeiro

“…Quanto à escolaridade dos pais, assim como neste estudo, Rocha et al 20 , também encontraram maioria com EM completo, sendo 36,8% (n=252; n total=685) das mães e 27,3% (n=187; n total=685) dos pais. Por outro lado, Ates-sahinkaya, Acar-Tek e Diguzel 25 , em estudo descritivo e transversal realizado com 58 crianças e adolescentes com TEA matriculados em centros de educação especial em Eskisehir, Turquia, entre janeiro e julho de 2015, para analisar a relação entre as características maternas e os problemas nutricionais em crianças autistas, observaram 44,8% (n=26; n total=58) das mães com baixa escolaridade (inferior a EM completo). Esse estudo se assemelha ao encontrado pelo IBGE, no Censo populacional realizado em 2010, no qual 53,9% da população brasileira de 25 anos ou mais apresentam nível de escolaridade variável (de sem instrução ao EM incompleto) 26 .…”