Preliminary comparison of the energy and macronutrient intakes of young children aged 1 to 3.9 years living in areas of high compared to low household deprivation

Background: Families living with fewer resources are vulnerable to suboptimal nutrition status, which places young children, as a vulnerable population group, at considerable risk of adverse health outcomes. There have been no comprehensive New Zealand studies to investigate the nutrient intakes of children under 5 years old, or attempts to explore the differences in nutrient intakes between different levels of household deprivation, in the past two decades. This is particularly concerning considering how influential poverty is on childhood growth and development, and long-term health. Objective: To compare energy and macronutrient intakes of young preschool children living in areas of high household deprivation compared to those living in areas of low household deprivation in New Zealand. Design: The Young Foods New Zealand (YFNZ) study is an ongoing cross-sectional study of young children aged between 1 and 3.9 years from Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin, New Zealand. The current study includes participants who were enrolled in the YFNZ study between November 2020 and September 2021. On two non-consecutive days, researchers administered two 24-hour dietary recalls, and a questionnaire to assess demographic characteristics. Anthropometric measurements (weight, height/length) were made, and body mass index z-score was calculated. The New Zealand Index of Deprivation (NZDep18) ordinal scale was used to categorize participants into one of three decile groupings: 1 to 3 (low deprivation), 4 to 7, or 8 to 10 (high deprivation), to determine the level of household deprivation. Dietary data were analysed in FoodWorks nutrient analysis software using the New Zealand food composition database. Results: Of the 210 participants included in this study, 23 participants had two 24-hour recalls available for analysis. The mean (SD) age of participants in the overall sample was 2.6 (0.9) years. Most of the participants from low deprivation areas were of Māori or New Zealand European ethnicity and the majority of participants in the high deprivation group were of Pacific ethnicity (total response). The mean energy intake was 4424 kJ/d in the low deprivation group and 5194 kJ/d in the high deprivation group, however, the difference of 770 kJ/d was not statistically significant. When comparing gram amounts per day, the high deprivation group appeared to have higher intakes of all macronutrients when compared to the low deprivation group, with mean differences of: protein, 5.5 g/d; total fat, 9.0 g/d; saturated fat, 4.7 g/d; carbohydrate, 19.8 g/d; total sugars, 14.4 g/d; dietary fibre 0.8 g/d, although these differences were not statistically significant. When the intakes were adjusted for energy, the high deprivation group also appeared to have a higher intake of total fat (1.7 % energy), saturated fat (1.4 % energy), and total sugars (2.0 % energy), however this was not statistically significant. Conclusions: The energy and total fat, saturated fat, and total sugars intakes of children in high deprivation areas appear to be higher than those of children living in low deprivation areas, although these differences were not statistically significant in this small sample. Further research is needed to confirm these findings in a larger sample of children, which the analysis of the full YFNZ study dataset will provide. The results from this preliminary study suggests that this topic warrants further investigation, and challenges policy makers to question whether enough is being done to improve the health of children living in poverty