Eating habits of breastfed and non-breastfed children up to one year of age

• Autor(a) principal: Vieira, Graciete Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Vieira, Tatiana de Oliveira, Gomes, Daiene Rosa
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Baiana de Saúde Pública (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://rbsp.sesab.ba.gov.br/index.php/rbsp/article/view/3461
• topic: Hábito alimentar; Alimentação; Aleitamento materno; Comportamento alimentar; Hábitos alimentarios; Alimentación; Lactancia materna; Comportamiento alimentario; Eating habits; Feeding; Breastfeeding; Feeding behavior

Eating practices in the breastfeeding period constitute an important boundary to the formation of eating habits throughout life. This study aims to evaluate the association between breastfeeding and eating habits of children younger than one year of age in a big city in Northeastern Brazil by a cross-sectional study in which 1471 mothers/children were interviewed in 71 vaccination sites. We surveyed eating habits of children in the 24 hours preceding the data collection: breastfeeding, consumption of other milk sources, water, tea, juice, fruit, family usual meal, sweetened food, cookies, snacks, soft drinks and coffee; as well as bottle and pacifier use. Breastfed children less than three months old, compared with the non-breastfed ones, presented higher consumption of water (12.8% vs. 69.6%), tea (14.6% vs. 45.5%) and fruit juice (5% vs. 30.4%). At the age of three to six months, breastfed children showed lower prevalence of other milk sources (32.4% vs. 92.2%) and sweetened foods (19.0% vs. 60.0%). Breastfeeding figured as a protective factor against early consumption of unhealthy foods such as cookies/salty snacks (3–6 months old) and sweetened foods in all quarters. Bottles and pacifiers use was significantly higher in non-breastfed children, especially in the second quarter, with a prevalence of 93.8% and 100%, respectively. Breastfed children showed better eating habits when compared with the non-breastfed ones.