Comportamento alimentar infantil e seus fatores associados

Abstract

Introduction: Eating behavior represents a combination of actions that range from the choice of food to its final action in the organism, including pre and post-ingestion phenomena. Objective: To evaluate infant feeding behavior and its associated factors. Methods: This dissertation covers a systematic review of the literature and a cross - sectional study. The review presented the use of descriptors related to "eating behavior", "eating disorders" and "children", in the BVS / LILACS and MEDLINE databases, in articles published in the last 10 years in English, Portuguese or Spanish and cross-sectional or longitudinal design. The quality of the studies and the concordance in the selection made by two independent reviewers was assessed with an adapted international scale and Kappa (K) test, respectively. The cross-sectional study included 315 children from municipal schools in Belo Horizonte / MG and their parents. Data collection included measurement of weight and height, consultation of school documentation and telephone contact with parents to obtain sociodemographic, economic and behavioral data (Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire-CEBQ). Descriptive analysis, Student's T-tests, Shapiro Wilk, ANOVA and linear regression models were performed (beta values and 95% confidence intervals are presented). Results: The systematic review included 14 studies, with substantial inter-rater agreement (92%, K = 0.67) and positive methodological evaluation with a mean of 6.78 ± 2.22 points (maximum 10 points). Sampling heterogeneity (n = 15 to 3766) and age (three to 21 years) were observed. Most articles (8/14) identified associations of eating behavior with nutritional status (overweight / obesity). Parental pressure (5/14), the sex of the children (4/14); food consumption and lifestyle (3/14) and emotional aspects of children (2/14) also presented an interface with eating behavior. Breastfeeding, socioeconomic factors, neophobia and image distortion were cited by an article each. In the cross-sectional study, overweight and obese children (35.5%) presented higher scores in the subscale response to food 0.40 (0.11, 0.69) and 0.58 (0.26, 0.89); pleasure to eat 0.46 (0.17, 0.75) and 0.44 (0.13, 0.75) and emotional overdose 0.59 (0.30, 0.87) and 0.65 (0, 35, 0.96), respectively when compared to eutrophic ones (p <0.05). There was a higher food response among 8-year-olds (vs 7 years): 0.35 (0.07; 0.63). Those children whose parents were in the third tertile of income had lower emotional overdose (0.36; -0.64; -0.08) compared to the 1st tertile. Conclusion: The review evidenced a considerable contribution of nutritional status to food behavior. Such finding was identified in the original study that also detected contribution of the participants' age, sex and income to the outcome.