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The Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS) 2021: Highlights and Future Directions

The 2021 Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS 2021) is the first nationwide survey of the feeding practices of children under 2 years. Key Findings: Nearly half of the infants were exclusively breastfed to 4 months, and breastfeeding duration was long, with 68% of infants breastfed...

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Autores principales: Netting, Merryn J., Moumin, Najma A., Makrides, Maria, Green, Tim J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9612114/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36297025
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14204343
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author Netting, Merryn J.
Moumin, Najma A.
Makrides, Maria
Green, Tim J.
author_facet Netting, Merryn J.
Moumin, Najma A.
Makrides, Maria
Green, Tim J.
author_sort Netting, Merryn J.
collection PubMed
description The 2021 Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS 2021) is the first nationwide survey of the feeding practices of children under 2 years. Key Findings: Nearly half of the infants were exclusively breastfed to 4 months, and breastfeeding duration was long, with 68% of infants breastfed to 6 months and 44% breastfed into their second year. Infants were introduced to complementary foods at the appropriate time, between 4 and 6 months. We found a mismatch between the number of recommended servings from each food group in the Australian Dietary Guidelines and the dietary intake of toddlers in our study. Toddlers consumed twice as many fruit servings as recommended, and nearly all consumed discretionary foods despite no allowance for these foods. While most toddlers consumed the recommended dairy serves, they consumed half the recommended servings for other food groups—meats and alternatives, grains, and vegetables. The modeling that informed the Australian Dietary Guidelines did not include an allowance for breastmilk; this needs to be addressed, as a quarter of toddlers in OzFITS 2021 received 30% or more energy from breastmilk. Infants and toddlers met their requirements for most nutrients. One exception was iron, where 90% of older infants and 25% of toddlers had inadequate intakes. Excessive sodium intake was also of concern, with 1 in 3 toddlers exceeding the upper limit of 1000 mg/day. Here, we discuss additional findings, study limitations, gaps in the evidence base, and future directions.
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spelling pubmed-96121142022-10-28 The Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS) 2021: Highlights and Future Directions Netting, Merryn J. Moumin, Najma A. Makrides, Maria Green, Tim J. Nutrients Commentary The 2021 Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS 2021) is the first nationwide survey of the feeding practices of children under 2 years. Key Findings: Nearly half of the infants were exclusively breastfed to 4 months, and breastfeeding duration was long, with 68% of infants breastfed to 6 months and 44% breastfed into their second year. Infants were introduced to complementary foods at the appropriate time, between 4 and 6 months. We found a mismatch between the number of recommended servings from each food group in the Australian Dietary Guidelines and the dietary intake of toddlers in our study. Toddlers consumed twice as many fruit servings as recommended, and nearly all consumed discretionary foods despite no allowance for these foods. While most toddlers consumed the recommended dairy serves, they consumed half the recommended servings for other food groups—meats and alternatives, grains, and vegetables. The modeling that informed the Australian Dietary Guidelines did not include an allowance for breastmilk; this needs to be addressed, as a quarter of toddlers in OzFITS 2021 received 30% or more energy from breastmilk. Infants and toddlers met their requirements for most nutrients. One exception was iron, where 90% of older infants and 25% of toddlers had inadequate intakes. Excessive sodium intake was also of concern, with 1 in 3 toddlers exceeding the upper limit of 1000 mg/day. Here, we discuss additional findings, study limitations, gaps in the evidence base, and future directions. MDPI 2022-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9612114/ /pubmed/36297025 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14204343 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Commentary
Netting, Merryn J.
Moumin, Najma A.
Makrides, Maria
Green, Tim J.
The Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS) 2021: Highlights and Future Directions
title The Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS) 2021: Highlights and Future Directions
title_full The Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS) 2021: Highlights and Future Directions
title_fullStr The Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS) 2021: Highlights and Future Directions
title_full_unstemmed The Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS) 2021: Highlights and Future Directions
title_short The Australian Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (OzFITS) 2021: Highlights and Future Directions
title_sort australian feeding infants and toddlers study (ozfits) 2021: highlights and future directions
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9612114/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36297025
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14204343
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