effect of nutritional supplementation on physical activity and exploratory behavior of Mexican infants aged 8–12 months

• Published in: European journal of clinical nutrition Vol. 64; no. 6; pp. 644 - 651
• Main Authors: Aburto, N.J, Ramirez-Zea, M, Neufeld, L.M, Flores-Ayala, R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.06.2010; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 692/700/1720; 692/700/459/1994; 704/844/1759; Babies; Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Child development; Clinical Nutrition; Cluster Analysis; cognition; Cognitive ability; Design of experiments; Dietary Supplements; drug effects; drug therapy; Epidemiology; Exercise; Experimental design; Exploration; Exploratory Behavior; Exploratory Behavior - drug effects; Feeding. Feeding behavior; Food, Fortified; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Health aspects; Humans; Infant; Infant Behavior; Infant Behavior - drug effects; infant feeding; infant nutrition; Infant Nutrition Disorders; Infant Nutrition Disorders - drug therapy; Infants; Internal Medicine; Logistic Models; Malnutrition; Medical sciences; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Metabolic Diseases; Mexicans; Mexico; Micronutrients; Micronutrients - pharmacology; Micronutrients - therapeutic use; Motor Activity; Motor Activity - drug effects; Nutrition; nutritional adequacy; Odds Ratio; original-article; pharmacology; Physical activity; Psychological aspects; Public Health; Syrup; therapeutic use; Vertebrates: anatomy and physiology, studies on body, several organs or systems; Mexico; Central America; America; Mexico; exploratory behavior; infant; nutrition science; physical activity; Human; Physical exercise; Nutrition; Metabolic diseases; Infant; Behavior; Feeding; Food supplement
• ISSN: 0954-3007; 1476-5640; 1476-5640
• DOI: 10.1038/ejcn.2010.52

Background/Objectives: Physical activity and exploration in infancy affect physical and cognitive development. Nutritional supplementation improves activity in severely malnourished infants, but the evidence in mild-to-moderately malnourished and nutritionally at-risk infants is equivocal. We tested the effect of multiple-micronutrient supplementation on physical activity and exploration in Mexican infants. Subjects/Methods: Using a quasi experimental design, we analyzed data from a supplementation study that lacked a placebo-control group. We compared infants between 8 and 12 months measured at baseline who had received no supplementation (comparison group, n=78), with infants 8–12 months measured after 4 months of daily supplementation (treatment group, n=109). The treatment consisted of three supplement types: micronutrient powder, syrup (each containing only micronutrients) and a milk-based, fortified-food supplement (FFS; containing micronutrients and macronutrients). We formed the micronutrient-only group (MM) by combining the micronutrient powder and syrup groups. We measured activity and exploration by direct observation and used cluster analysis to form and characterize activity and exploration clusters. We performed logistic regression with activity or exploration cluster as the outcome variable and treatment versus comparison and MM or FFS versus comparison as the predictor variables. Results: Treatment versus comparison increased the odds of being in the high activity (odds ratio (OR)=2.35, P<0.05) and high exploration (OR=1.87, P<0.05) cluster. MM increased the odds of being in the high activity (OR=2.64, P<0.05) cluster and FFS increased the odds (OR=3.16, P<0.05) of being in the high exploration cluster. Conclusions: Nutritional supplementation benefited activity and exploration in this sample of Mexican infants.