27679
Autistic Features and Gender-Specific Eating Behavior throughout Childhood: The Generation R Study
Objectives: To investigate the relationship between autistic features and eating behavior throughout childhood and their sex-specificity, in a general population sample.
Methods: This study was embedded in Generation R, a prospective population-based cohort study from fetal life onwards. Children born in Rotterdam between April 2002 and January 2006 were followed up until age ten years. We included 4413 mother-child dyads with cross-sectional information on autistic features and eating behavior at age of three/four years. For 3559 mother-child dyads, prospective information was available on autistic traits at age six and eating behavior at age ten years. We collected parental reports of Pervasive Developmental Problems at age three and autistic traits at age six years. Eating behavior was assessed at ages four and ten years.
Results: Cross-sectional analyses showed that maternal reported Pervasive Developmental Problems score of preschool children was positively associated with Satiety Responsiveness, Food Fussiness, Emotional Undereating, Emotional Overeating and Food Responsiveness, and negatively with Enjoyment of Food (e.g. per 1 SD Pervasive Developmental Problems score, adjusted B for Food Fussiness SD-score = 0.12; 95% CI, 0.09 to 0.15). Prospective analysis showed that autistic traits at six years were positively associated with Picky Eating and Food Responsiveness at age ten years in both boys and girls (e.g. B for Picky Eating = 0.05; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.09), and with Emotional Undereating (B = 0.10; 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.17) and Emotional Overeating (B = 0.16; 95% CI, 0.08 to 0.23) in girls only.
Conclusions: Preschool autistic features were associated with eating behavior problems in early and middle childhood, with results pointing to a gender-specific presentation. This suggests that eating behavior problems need more attention in the diagnostics of autism, particularly in girls.