Repercussões da seletividade alimentar na infância: uma revisão da literatura.

Abstract

Food Selectivity is characterized by food refusal, inappetence, and disinterest in food, and is a common behavior that occurs during childhood and leads to a diet with low dietary diversity. This behavior can last for years, generating negative consequences. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to investigate in the scientific literature, through an integrative review, the repercussions of food selectivity in early childhood and furthermore, to score the risk factors in the development of food selectivity and analyze the consequences of food selectivity in the formation of eating habits and nutritional status. The articles were selected in March 2023 by searching the scientific literature through the following databases: Pubmed, Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS), and Periodicos CAPES, using the descriptors: "Infant food selectivity" and "Food selectivity and nutritional status," and 8 papers were selected after applying the exclusion and inclusion criteria. As results, the scientific literature shows how common food selectivity is in childhood, so that the aspects that are associated with the emergence of this behavior have been elucidated in recent years. In the results found in the literature it can be observed that food selectivity is more present when maternal concern is evidenced in children at three years of age, so that selective children consumed less energy and micronutrients and had lower weight for age than non-selective children. Discarded foods such as meat, eggs, and vegetables showed negative associations with growth. Thus, we conclude that future observational and exploratory studies should be conducted on the consequences of food selectivity in order to deepen the knowledge of the literature on the subject, since the results of research conducted with selective children are still scarce, in order to understand what food selectivity is in children and what its repercussions are in the lives of children.