Modifiable Behavior & Dietary Predictors of Overweight in Children with ASD

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童超重已达到流行病水平，患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的儿童超重率为36%，高于正常发育的儿童。儿童超重是一个主要的健康问题，因为它与儿童时期的血脂异常、高血压、高血糖和2型糖尿病有关。此外，长大后体重超重的青少年，成年后患高血压、心脏病、动脉粥样硬化、结肠直肠癌、关节炎和慢性超重的几率更高。然而，尽管迫切需要对自闭症儿童超重进行有效的预防和干预，但由于缺乏潜在重要的饮食和行为因素的经验数据，我们在制定适当的计划方面受到严重阻碍。与正常发育的儿童相比，患有ASD的儿童有独特的缺陷和行为，这些缺陷和行为会使体重管理复杂化，包括运动技能困难、认知困难、有问题的用餐时间行为、更大的拒食和选择性，这使得针对正常发育儿童的体重管理干预措施极不可能推广到他们身上。因此，迫切需要研究与ASD儿童超重相关的因素。我们研究的长期目标是确定预防和治疗自闭症儿童超重的循证方法。当前项目的目标是确定父母和孩子的用餐时间行为和饮食特征是相关的

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Pediatric overweight has reached epidemic levels and, at 36%, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a higher rate of overweight than typically developing children. Pediatric overweight is a major health problem because it is linked to childhood onset of dyslipidemia, hypertension, high blood sugar, and Type 2 Diabetes. Also youths who grow up overweight, will as adults, face higher rates of hypertension, heart disease, atherosclerosis, colorectal cancer, arthritis, and chronic overweight. Yet, despite a pressing need for effective prevention and intervention efforts for overweight in children with ASD, we are significantly hampered in developing appropriate programs because we lack empirical data on potentially important dietary and behavioral factors. Children with ASD have unique impairments and behaviors that can complicate weight management, including difficulty with motor skills, cognitive difficulties, problematic mealtime behaviors and greater food refusal and selectivity than typically developing children, which make it highly unlikely that available weight management interventions for typically developing children will generalize to them. Therefore, there is a critical need for research examining factors related to overweight in children with ASD specifically. The long-term goal of our research is to identify evidence-based methods for preventing and treating overweight in children with ASD. The goal of the current project is to identify parent and child mealtime behavior and diet characteristics that are related to child weight status as a basis for future research to develop a suitable weight management program for children with ASD. The current study aims are: 1) identify child and parent mealtime behaviors associated with present and future weight in young children with ASD and 2) assess if diet variables are related to present and future child weight. This project is significant because t is expected to provide much needed information on factors related to overweight in children with ASD, which can be used to develop and refine weight management programs for children with ASD, an understudied population for weight management. The project is innovative because of its proposed home-based ethnographic methodology and longitudinal design, which both represent a substantial departure from existing studies in children with ASD and offer the opportunity to collect data necessary for intervention development. We expect our approach will greatly expand the body of knowledge for this under-studied but vulnerable population of children and will lay the groundwork for the development and dissemination of tailored weight management programs, two research goals which are in line with priorities for the NIH Autism Interagency Coordinating Center and the Autism Treatment Networks. Given the large number of children with ASD and the high prevalence of overweight in this population, the development and dissemination of tailored weight management programs for these children is expected to lead to improved health and functioning for a large number of children.