Faculty

Lee Way Seah

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Paediatric Nutrition & Catch-Up Growth: Role of Clinicians in Educating Parents

Provision of adequate nutrition in the first few years of life is essential for growth and development. Children grow fastest physically and undergo rapid neurocognitive development during the first 2–3 years of life. Inadequate nutrition during this critical period affects both mental development and physical growth. Most children with faltering growth do not have an underlying organic disease but rather due to non-organic faltering growth. This is usually observed when the growth of a child begins to slow down in late infancy and subsequently declines markedly until about 18 to 19 months. The most important cause of non-organic growth faltering is due to inadequate nutritional intake. It is estimated that at least 1 in 3 children < 5 years is undernourished or overweight and 1 in 2 children have hidden hunger, undermining the capacity of millions of children to achieve adequate growth to fulfil their growth potential. If parental attitude, knowledges and health behaviours can be modified via education or directed interventions, the potential for success in changing the behaviour of children should be greater. Parent-taught intervention has been found to be effective in stimulating attitude, knowledge, and food choice behaviour changes by parents while a school-based curriculum has less impact on parents. Paediatricians are in a unique position
to partner with families/parents and children to influence key components of the broader strategy of developing community support. Paediatricians often follow up children longitudinally, sometimes from infancy through adolescence. Different prevention strategies can be tailored at different period of childhood. In addition, paediatricians are also often regarded by families as a reliable source of health advice and as experts in promoting developmentally appropriate, behaviour-change agent and advocate for healthful lifestyles.

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