Nutrition patterns in children attending nursery school in Sanok vs. nutritional guidelines

Abstract

Introduction: Nutrition is a particularly important environmental factor determining health. Research showed that the type of diet affects systemic changes and its influence is stronger at younger age. Breastfeeding is the optimum nutrition method for infants. This type of natural nutrition provides all dietary elements necessary for normal somatic growth and psychomotor development of a child and, at the same time, it comprises an important element of disease prevention. Parents’ knowledge about current nutrition guidelines for infants as well as adjustment of this knowledge to individual needs of a particular child determine whether these recommendations are applied and measurable health outcomes are observed. The purpose of this study was to evaluate nutritional patterns, also introducing complementary foods like gluten and fish, during infancy vs. current infant nutrition guidelines. Material and methods: The study group included 92 healthy infants and children between 10 and 55 months old attending two nursery schools in Sanok. Parents of these children were asked to fill a questionnaire form developed by the author. As a result information about breastfeeding and time of introducing gluten and fish to infant’s diet was obtained. These results were compared with nutrition guidelines introduced in 2007. This type of comparison allowed the author to assess whether parents followed current nutrition guidelines for infants. Results and conclusions: This study showed that introducing supplementary foods to infants’ diet did not match current nutrition recommendations, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Therefore, it may be concluded that parents need to be educated in the field of nutrition adequate for children in order to ensure normal development of their children