Dietary behavior problems of 2-7 yearold autistic children in Urumqi / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To compare the differences of dietary behavior between autistic children and normal children, and to explore the dietary behavior problems and their influencing factors in autistic children, so as to provide theoretical basis for improving dietary behavior problems and guiding scientific feeding of autistic children.@*Methods@#113 autistic children aged 2-7 from a hospital and an autism rehabilitation training institution in Urumqi were selected as the case group and 223 children aged 2-7 from a hospital in Urumqi as the control group.@*Results@#The results showed that there were significant differences between the two groups in the main type of care, caregiver education, caregiver occupation and monthly per capita economic income(P<0.05). The scores of picking food, food response, unhealthy eating habits, overeating response and emotional eating were significantly higher in the case group than in the control group, while the scores of extrinsic eating and active eating ability were significantly lower in the case group than in the control group(P<0.05).@*Conclusion@#The main dietary problems of autistic children include severe picky eating, food response to different degrees, over fullness response, bad eating behavior, emotional eating and so on.