Poor nutrition from first foods: A cross‐sectional study of complementary feeding of infants and young children in six remote Aboriginal communities across northern Australia

Abstract

Support for current beneficial breast-feeding practices and promotion of nutrient-dense complementary foods, need to be embedded in initiatives for improved family food security. Good nutrition in early life can reduce the disparity in health, education and economic status between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians.

Dietary intake of Aboriginal Australian children aged 6–36 months in a remote community: a cross-sectional study

“…Three 24-h recalls were completed with each participant over 2-4 weeks. This was to ensure the three recalls captured a pay week, non-pay week and weekend day [10]. Dietary recalls were conducted by either the research assistant (DK) or senior research dietitian (JB), until the three trained local researchers (VG, RD, YD) felt confident to conduct them supervised by the research assistant/dietitian.…”

“…Despite this, no data are collected for children under 2 years of age in Australian national nutrition surveys [7,8]. A number of recent dietary studies in this age group in Australia have reported that diets are lacking in fruit and vegetables [9,10] and iron [11,12], and are high in discretionary foods [9,10,13]. However, very little literature comprehensively captures the transition to solid foods for children in remote Aboriginal communities, a population expected to be especially vulnerable to nutritional inadequacy.…”

“…Settler colonisation of Australia drastically altered and/or in many places destroyed this balance and resulted in an over 200-year struggle of Aboriginal Peoples for their rights as first Australians. Seasonal disrupted access to communities for food deliveries [10], high relative food costs (on average a 60-68% increase in cost compared to local centres) [15], and poor access to food storage and preparation equipment [16] as a consequence of socioeconomic inequities, increase the risk of food insecurity for people living remotely. Consequently, Brimblecombe, Maypilama [16] found adults living in remote communities reported food insecurity issues impacting food choices and therefore diet quality; for example, choosing high carbohydrate staples that provide calories at cheaper cost and last longer than fresh foods that are not as filling and will rapidly deteriorate.…”

“…Social welfare is also provided by default in fortnightly instalments resulting in the same pay cycle. Researchers utilising store sales data from remote communities have since shown that community-level dietary quality is significantly reduced during the non-pay week [17], and the pay cycle has also been found to impact dietary diversity in children less than 2 years of age [10].…”

Bridging the gap in paediatric nutrition: Dietetic practice research to improve knowledge translation

“…both report on practice research in the area of Indigenous nutrition. From their study of 227 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 6–24 month old children, Leonard et al concluded that ‘support for current beneficial breast‐feeding practices, and promotion of nutrient dense complementary foods, need to be embedded in initiatives for improved family food security’ . This strengths‐focused approach can aid identification of knowledge translation strategies that reinforce areas where community groups are doing well (i.e.…”