Nutritional status of children with autism spectrum disorder at caring centers for autistic children in Vietnam

Objectives: To describe nutritional status of children with ASD at caring centers for autistic children in Vietnam in 2021. Methods: This research is conducted at 18 centers raising children with ASD in Vietnam during two weeks in December 2021. A cross-sectional design was applied. Participants: The research was conducted on children who diagnosed with ASD and their caregivers. Data was collected by REDcap systerm through online interview. Results: According to height for age of Z-score, stunted and severely stunted children had the same percentage (12.1%) of under 5 years old group and in the group of 5-15 years old children, the percentage were 6.8% and 19.3% respectively. Moreover, in compliance with weight for age of Z-score, the percentage of underweight (6.7%) was five times higher than severely underweight ones (1.3) in the 5 years old group. And classification by BMI for age Z-Score, the rate of overweight and obesity was 30.9% and 37.3% respectively in two age groups. Conclusion: The rate of malnutrition is not high with underweight, stunted and the rate of malnutrition wasted mainly being moderate. However, the rate of overweight and obesity was significantly higher in both age groups. These findings emphasize the need for nutrition interventions to prevent malnutrition in the under 5-year-old children and overweight-obesity in the older group.