Failure to thrive in toddlers with lack of interest in eating and food and their cognitive development during later childhood

Irene Chatoor; Rebecca Begtrup; Iris Yao Cheng; Laura Vismara; Lauren E Webb; Loredana Lucarelli

doi:10.3389/fped.2023.1179797

Failure to thrive in toddlers with lack of interest in eating and food and their cognitive development during later childhood

Front Pediatr. 2023 Aug 29:11:1179797. doi: 10.3389/fped.2023.1179797. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Irene Chatoor^{1

2}, Rebecca Begtrup², Iris Yao Cheng³, Laura Vismara⁴, Lauren E Webb⁵, Loredana Lucarelli⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States.
² Children's National Hospital, Washington, DC, United States.
³ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA, United States.
⁴ Department of Pedagogy, Psychology, Philosophy, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy.
⁵ Department of Psychology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, United States.

Abstract

Background: Experiencing Failure to Thrive or malnutrition in early years has been associated with children later displaying low Intelligence Quotient (IQ). The current study's aim was to examine whether Failure to Thrive in Toddlers with Lack of Interest in Eating and Food, a subtype of Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder as defined by DSM-5, which has also previously been identified as Infantile Anorexia (IA), was associated with poor cognitive development outcomes during later childhood.

Methods: The IQs and growth parameter of 30 children (53% female) previously diagnosed and treated for IA at 12 to 42 months of age, were reevaluated at a mean age of 10.0 years (SD = 2.1 years) and compared to 30 matched control children. Children's growth was assessed using Z-scores and their cognitive development was measured using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-4th Edition.

Results: None of the growth parameters were significantly related to IQ. Further, IQ scores of children previously diagnosed with IA and control children were not significantly different. However, the education level of children's fathers had a significantly positive effect on IQ.

Conclusions: Our study highlights the disjunction between growth parameters and IQ within our sample. Overall, our findings suggest that the primary target of intervention for these children should be the parent-child conflict around the feeding relationship, rather than a focus on the child's weight itself. Finally, our results confirm the relevance to include fathers in the intervention of these children.

Keywords: ARFID; cognitive development; failure to thrive; longitudinal study; parenting.