Changes in children’s fruit and vegetable consumption and associated factors during COVID-2019 control period / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To understand fruit and vegetable consumption of children and associated factors during COVID-2019 control period, and to provide basis for growth and development of children.@*Methods@#In February 2020, 334 parents of children aged 2 to 15 years old from 22 provinces, cities and autonomous regions, including Hubei, Beijing, Shandong, Gansu were surveyed through the "Questionnaire Star" network questionnaire for the students’ fruit and vegatable consumption during the period of COVID-19, and Logistic regression analysis was conducted with multivariate analysis.@*Results@#Among the children, 26.4% of their vegetable consumption and 45.2% of their fruit consumption had changed. The multivariate analysis showed that inconvenient purchase (OR=6.52) were related to the decrease of children’s vegetable consumption. The 2-5 age group(OR=0.28), whether parents actively gained relevant knowledge of diet (OR=0.33) and mild epidemic risk (OR=4.35) were related to the increase of children’s vegetable consumption(P<0.05). Average monthly income of family(OR=6.27-8.39), inconvenient purchase(OR=2.93), and epidemic risk (OR=0.21-0.26) were associated with reduced fruit consumption among children(P<0.05). While gender(OR=2.20), average monthly income of family below 2 000 yuan (OR=6.94) and mild epidemic risk (OR=0.35) were associated with increased fruit consumption among children(P<0.05).@*Conclusion@#Children’s fruit and vegetable consumption were greatly affected by the inconvenience of food purchase during the period of COVID-19. Low-income families were less resilient, and their children’s food consumption was more likely to be affected. Parents’ high level of nutritional knowledge could help weaken the adverse impact of the epidemic on children’s diet.