Dietary Practices in Saudi Cerebral Palsy Children

Objectives: To determine the dietary practices of Saudi cerebral palsy (CP) children.

Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the following information from parents of CP children: demographics, main source of dietary information, frequency of main meals, foods/drinks used for main meals and in-between-meals.

Results: Parents of 157 CP children participated. Parents were divided into three, while children were divided into two age groups. The main sources of dietary information included popular media (46.5%) and dentist (36.3%). Most of the children had three meals (71.3%) or two meals (24.8%) daily. Choices for main meals included meats (68.8%), vegetables (65.6%), fruits (28.4%) and puddings (38.9%). The main three drinks choices with main meals included packed juices (59.9%), bottled water (58.8%) and fresh fruit juices (33.1%). The choices for in-between meals snacks included biscuits (61.1%), potato chips (51.6%), fruits (43.9%) and chocolates (41.4%). The choice of drinks with snacks was similar to that used with main meals. In cross-tabulation, older parents used meat (p=.03) and soft drinks (p=.04) more often for their children’s main meals. Older children were given meat (p=.004) and soft drinks (p=.04) more often with main meals. Older children were given potato chips as snacks more often than younger children (p=.02), and there was a trend towards use of chocolates as snacks in older children (p=.08).

Conclusion: Parents of CP children need to be educated about dietary practices of their children especially in areas such as the use of packed juices, dairy products, soft drinks and chocolates.