Feeding difficulties in preschool children at an early childhood education school

Abstract

Feeding difficulties are any problem that negatively affects the process of parents or caregivers providing food or nutrients to the child. The objective of this work was to investigate eating difficulties in preschool children at a municipal early childhood education school in Uruguaiana/RS. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee and carried out between October and November 2022. All parents or guardians of children (n=70) who attended school, aged 4-5 years, were invited to participate in the research. Everyone received the Free and Informed Consent Form, as well as the research questionnaire. The instrument used was the Brazilian Infant Feeding Scale (EBAI), which has 14 questions regarding children's nutrition. Descriptive statistics were performed in terms of frequency and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for comparisons between sexes (p<0.05). 31 responses were obtained from parents regarding children's nutrition. The data revealed that 9.68% (n=3) had some degree of feeding difficulty, 3.33% (n=1) with a severe degree and 6.45% (n=2) with a moderate degree. The remaining children (n=28) also presented behaviors related to feeding difficulties, however, without enough scores to be classified as having feeding difficulties. The most frequently described behaviors were: the caregiver using distractions or going after the child to make them eat, feeding time around 31-60 minutes or more, child who nauseates, spits or vomits with some type of food and the negative influence of food in family relationships. Thus, a low percentage of feeding difficulties was observed in the studied population, in accordance with the literature studied.

Keywords

• eating behavior
• food selectivity
• preschool
• child nutrition