Nutritional assessment and diet quality of visually impaired Spanish children

The visually impaired represents a fairly numerous group in Spain although no data on their nutritional status has previously been published.

This work aims to assess the nutritional state of a sample of visually impaired children and the quality of their diet.

The sample comprised 229 boys and girls aged between 8 and 18 years (mean = 14, SD = 2.6), all of whom had a visual discapacity and were students of the Centros de Recursos Educativos (CREs; Educational Resources Centres) of the Organización Nacional de Ciegos de España (ONCE; Spanish National Organization for the Blind).

This sample featured a high prevalence of overweight (25.8%) and obesity (11.8%) according to the international standard. The mean daily energy consumption and the quantity of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and fibre were greater in boys (2604 kcal day(-1); 290 g of carbohydrates, 126 g of fats and 90 g of proteins) than in girls (2159 kcal day(-1), 232 g of carbohydrates, 107 g of fats and 80 g of proteins). No differences in diet intake according to degree of visual impairment were found. Their diet was unbalanced in comparison with the nutritional objectives for the Spanish population, since consumption of carbohydrates was low and that of fats was very high. The results relating to the quality of the diet reveal quite large deviations from the Mediterranean model. Only 11.9% of the whole sample had a value corresponding to a good quality diet.

The pattern of dietary consumption was the same as that observed in non visually impaired children in Spain in quantity and quality, nevertheless the prevalence of overweight and obesity is higher than in children without visual handicaps.