ESPE Abstracts

Background: Among alimentary factors leading to obesity in children, the main ones are: consumption of high-calorie foods with high content of carbohydrates and getting more calories during the second half of the day.

Objective: To study feeding habits in children of different ages with alimentary obesity compared with normative values.

Methods: We compared 3-day food diaries of 115 children with alimentary obesity with nutritional standards of healthy children recommended by Belarusian National Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Public Health – control (K). Patients were divided into three age groups: 1st 5–6 years (6.17±0.68 years; BMI 24.59±4.00 kg/m²) – 13 people (11.3%); 2nd 7–11 years (9.74±1.08 years; BMI 26.74±4.07 kg/m²) – 47 people (40.9%); 3rd 12–17 years (14.71±1.89 years; BMI 32.81±8.72 kg/m²) – 55 people (47.8%). The frequency of different food groups, main meals, snacks consumption were studied with the assessment in points (p) 0p – a child didn’t eat products of this group, 1p – ate every day, 2p – ate 1–2 times a day, 3p – ate three or more times a day. Results were processed using SPSS 18.0.

Results: Obese children showed a significant decrease in consumption of porridges and pasta (p (three groups)=0.0001), fiber vegetables (p2-κ=0.0003, p3-κ=0.0001), fruits (p2-κ=0.0001, p3-κ=0.0001), dairy products (p1-κ=0.022, p2-κ=0.0001, p3-κ=0.0001); with increasing – sweet beverages and juices (p1-κ=0.0008, p2-κ=0.0001, p3-κ=0.0001) and fried products (p1-κ=0.0008, p2-κ=0.0001, p3-κ=0.0001). The frequency of snack consumption were less in children with obesity vs the standard ratios (group 1 2.10±0.57, group 2 1.57±0.1p, group 3 1.26±0.80p, norm 3) (p1-K=0.022, p2-K=0.001 and p3-K=0.0001).

Conclusions: Reduced consumption of pasta and porridges, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, reducing the frequency of snacking and increased consumption of sweet drinks and juices, fried products contribute to the development of obesity in children.