Evaluation of the dietary behavioral attitudes and common dietary pattern among Children with autism spectrum disorders | ||
| Bulletin of the National Nutrition Institute of the Arab Republic of Egypt | ||
| Volume 58, Issue 2, December 2021, Pages 109-127 PDF (1.03 M) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/bnni.2021.233695 | ||
| Authors | ||
| Mai A Ghareb* ; Olfat M Nassar* | ||
| Nutrition and Food Sciences Department – Faculty of Home Economics – Menofia University | ||
| Abstract | ||
| The main objective of conducting the current study is to investigate the dietary behavioral attitudes and common dietary pattern that occur among autistic children. Fifty-six subjects diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) involved in the study aged from 3-20 years old. All the participants filled out a survey that included questions about lifestyle, family history with ASD, dietary patterns of a specific food, allergies, gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and measured body mass index (BMI). The collected data showed that dietary attitudes of autistic children are almost normal as 50% of participants consume 3 meals per day, and 14.3% have 4 meals per day. In addition, 80.4% (n= 45) of children were having breakfast every day. Also, based on the collected data GI problems were been prevalence among 32% of the participants. Most of the subjects (85.7%) do not suffer from milk allergies; also, most of them (91%) are not following either casein or gluten free diets. There are no significant differences in BMI between the children with and without GI problems (p=.838, independent samples t-test). In addition, BMI is not associated with the severity level of GI problems (p=0.884, ANOVA test). | ||
| Keywords | ||
| ASD; dietary pattern; behavior; BMI | ||
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