title: Dietary Practices in Saudi Cerebral Palsy Children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the dietary practices of Saudi cerebral palsy (CP) children.
  
  
  METHODS
  A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the following information from parents of CP children: demographics, main source of dietary information, frequency of main meals, foods/drinks used for main meals and in-between-meals.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Parents of 157 CP children participated. Parents were divided into three, while children were divided into two age groups. The main sources of dietary information included popular media (46.5%) and dentist (36.3%). Most of the children had three meals (71.3%) or two meals (24.8%) daily. Choices for main meals included meats (68.8%), vegetables (65.6%), fruits (28.4%) and puddings (38.9%). The main three drinks choices with main meals included packed juices (59.9%), bottled water (58.8%) and fresh fruit juices (33.1%). The choices for in-between meals snacks included biscuits (61.1%), potato chips (51.6%), fruits (43.9%) and chocolates (41.4%). The choice of drinks with snacks was similar to that used with main meals. In cross-tabulation, older parents used meat (p=.03) and soft drinks (p=.04) more often for their children's main meals. Older children were given meat (p=.004) and soft drinks (p=.04) more often with main meals. Older children were given potato chips as snacks more often than younger children (p=.02), and there was a trend towards use of chocolates as snacks in older children (p=.08).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Parents of CP children need to be educated about dietary practices of their children especially in areas such as the use of packed juices, dairy products, soft drinks and chocolates.
authors.affiliation: Dr. Nouf S. AlHammad, BDS, MS Department of Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontic, College of Dentistry, King Saud University, PO Box 60169 Riyadh 11545; Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Nouf S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Al-Hammad
keywords: Cerebral palsy; Children; Dietary practices