Infant feeding practices and dietary consumption of US infants and toddlers: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2012.

OBJECTIVE: To compare infant and toddler anthropometric measurements, feeding practices and mean nutrient intakes by race/ethnicity and income.

DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis using general linear modelling. Ten years of survey data (2003-2012) were combined to compare anthropometric measurements, feeding practices and mean nutrient intakes from a nationally representative US sample.

SETTING: The 2003-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

SUBJECTS: Infants and toddlers (n 3669) aged 0-24 months.

RESULTS: Rates of overweight were higher among Mexican-American infants and toddlers (P=0·002). There were also several differences in feeding practices among groups based on race/ethnicity. Cessation of breast-feeding occurred earlier for non-Hispanic black and Mexican-American v. non-Hispanic white infants (3·6 and 4·2 v. 5·3 months; P<0·0001; P=0·001). Age at first feeding of solids was earlier for white than Mexican-American infants (5·3 v. 5·7 months; P=0·02). There were differences in almost all feeding practices based on income, including the lowest-income infants stopped breast-feeding earlier than the highest-income infants (3·2 v. 5·8 months, P<0·0001). Several differences in mean nutrient intakes by both race/ethnicity and income were also identified.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates that disparities in overweight, feeding practices and mean nutrient intakes exist among infants and toddlers according to race/ethnicity, which cannot be disentangled from income.