The correlation between nutritional status and diet quality with acute respiratory infections in preschool children aged 5 to 7 years

Abstract

Aim To investigate the relationship between nutritional status (NS) and diet quality (DQ) with the frequency of acute respiratory infections (ARIs) in children aged 5 to 7 years. Methods Data were obtained through questionnaires. Anthropometric measurement, correlations between body mass index (BMI) and DQ with frequency of ARIs were analysed. Results A total of 129 children with an average age of 72.2±4.2 months were examined. Malnourished children had a 3.4 times higher probability of ARIs (OR=3.449; p=0.025, 95% CI=0.109-29.049) and a 5.6 times higher probability of bronchopneumonia com-pared to those with normal weight (OR=5.643; p=0.049, 95% CI=0.874-36.434). There was a significant positive association between the consumption of meat and meat prod-ucts with bronchitis (p=0.030; OR 9.921; 95% CI -1.252, +78.610) and a significant negative relationship between the consumption of cooked meals and ARIs in total (p=0.015; OR 0.046; 95% CI -0.004, +0.552). Unexpectedly, a significant positive asso-ciation was found between the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables and some respiratory infections, which needs to be verified with additional analyses. Conclusion DQ and NS are associated with the frequency of ARIs in preschool chil-dren. Additional analyses are needed with a larger number of participants in order to form more precise conclusions.