The Relationship between Children’s Behavioral Characteristics and Eating Attitudes: A Cross-Sectional Study in Japanese Preschool Children

We aimed to clarify the relationship between eating situations and behavioural problems in Japanese preschool children. Subjects were 591 children who attended nursery school in city Y, Japan, and their guardians. We administered a questionnaire that included the children's behavioural characteristics and items pertaining to eating situations, family structure, and guardian's educational background. We analysed the association between eating situations, meal greetings, pleasant mealtime, states of mastication, eating speed, and behavioural problems among preschool children. In these analyses, a Total Difficulty Score (TDS) was used to classify children's behavioural characteristics into two groups, 'Normal' and 'Borderline/Abnormal,' and binomial logistic regression analysis was performed. We calculated the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for 'Borderline/Abnormal.' Children who rarely ate breakfast with their families had an adjusted OR of 10.59 for borderline/abnormal TDS compared to children who ate breakfast with their families four or more days a week (p=0.005). Children who chewed only a little at meals had an adjusted OR of 3.25 for borderline/abnormal TDS than children who chewed well. Furthermore, the children who answered that mealtimes were not pleasant mealtime had an adjusted OR of 3.01 for borderline/abnormal TDS than children who always had pleasant mealtime. The results of this study suggested that children's behavioural problems, based on their TDS classification, were related to their eating situations and eating behaviours.