Abstract
Plant foods, rich in fibre, can offer textures that children find difficult to orally manipulate, resulting in low preferences but are important for a healthy diet and prevention of overweight in children. Our aim was to investigate preferences for food texture, intake of fibre-associated foods and the relation to BMI. Three hundred thirty European children (9–12 years, 54% female) indicated their texture preferences using the Child-Food-Texture-Preference- Questionnaire (CFTPQ), and their parents responded on fibre-associated food consumption and anthropometric information. BMI was significantly lower for children with higher intake of wholegrain alternatives of common foods; in addition to being significantly influenced by country and the wearing of a dental brace. Overall BMI-for-age-percentiles (BMI_pct) were negatively associated with the consumption of wholegrain cereals, white pasta and wholemeal products and positively associated with the intake of legumes and white biscuits. In males, BMI_pct were negatively associated with wholegrain products and dried fruits, and in females, positively with legume consumption. A few country-related associations were found for BMI_pct and wholegrain biscuits, seeds and nuts and refined products. No overall correlation was found between BMI_pct and the texture preference of soft/hard foods by CFTPQ, except in Austria. We conclude that this study revealed evidence of a connection between fibre-associated foods and children‘s BMI at a cross-cultural level and that sex is an important determinant of fibre-associated food intake and the development of overweight in childhood.
Highlights
Nowadays childhood overweight/obesity is one of the most significant health problems worldwide [1]
Taking children with overweight and obesity together, the highest proportions were reported for support was received from the Basque Government (Spain) (20.5%), followed by Austria (19.2%), Finland (18.8%), UK (17.6%)
This study aimed to explore the relationship between the weight status of 9–12 years old children across Europe, their consumption of fibre rich foods and their preference for soft or hard food textures
Summary
Nowadays childhood overweight/obesity is one of the most significant health problems worldwide [1]. Observational studies have consistently found a positive correlation between the consumption of plant foods and improved long-term health outcomes in children [9, 10] emphasising that dietary fibre-rich plant foods, such as grains, fruits, vegetables, potatoes and legumes have positive health effects. The main effects are weight loss [10] and reduced long term risk of metabolic syndrome [11]. Studies conducted in Europe, though carried out with adults, confirmed that intake of fibre-rich wholegrain pasta compared to refined pasta increased satiety and reduced hunger without changing the energy intake at subsequent meals [12, 13]
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