COMPARATIVE STUDY ON FOOD PREFERENCE OF SCHOOL GOING CHILDREN AGED 3-5 YEARS WITH AND WITHOUT AUTISM IN DHAKA CITY

Background and objectives: Food consumption pattern is one of the major contributors for optimal nutritional status of among children. A food consumption pattern varies due to food preference, acceptance and rejection behavior. It is therefore needed to explore the food preference, acceptance and re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of nutrition and metabolism 2017-10, Vol.71, p.503
Main Authors: Atiya, Naushin, Nourin, Israt, Jahan, Dilara, Ratna, Moffashara Sultana, Akter, Syeda Mahsina, Roy, Swapan Kumar
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Autism
Beverages
Carbohydrates
Chewing
Children
Childrens health
Fast food
Food
Food consumption
Food preferences
Intolerance
Mastication
Nutrition
Nutritional status
Parents
Preferences
Preschool children
Rejection
Soft drinks
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Summary:Background and objectives: Food consumption pattern is one of the major contributors for optimal nutritional status of among children. A food consumption pattern varies due to food preference, acceptance and rejection behavior. It is therefore needed to explore the food preference, acceptance and refusal among the autistic children. The children with autism are most vulnerable who are disregarded from evidence. So, we considered autistic and non-autistic children of 3-5 years aged to compare their food preference, acceptance and rejection to understand their eating behavior. To the author's knowledge, such studies have not been conducted yet in Bangladesh. This research objective was to observe and compare food preference, acceptance and refusal of 3-5 years school going children with and without autism in Dhaka city, Bangladesh. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from April to December, 2016 among 3-5 years old children in four selected schools in urban Dhaka city, Bangladesh. Both normal and autistic groups contained 53 samples (n=53) each. The data was collected by a structured questionnaire to the parents of children about their children's food preferences, acceptance and refusal. The data was entered by IBM SPSS software (version 20.0) and analyzed by Chisquare test. Results: There was a difference between the food preferences of two groups of children. However, both the group had special preferences. Homemade food was most accepted to the autistic children (58.5%), where the percentage for normal children was 52.8%; on the other hand 60.4 % normal children preferred fast food where the percentage for autistic was 56.6%. Soft drinks were also more preferred by normal children (73.6%) than autistic children (58.5%). Street food was less preferred to the autistic children (22.6%), than normal children (15.1%). Conclusions: The total amount and variety of consumed food by the autistic children was lower than children without autism. The reason could be their physical disability, chewing problem, carbohydrate intolerance, lack of caring practice etc.
ISSN:0250-6807
1421-9697