A Review on the Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated with Malnutrition among Learning Disabilities Children Essay

A Review on the Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated with Malnutrition among Learning Disabilities Children
Introduction
A person is said to have learning disability is when they are having a disorder that may affect the acquisition, organization, retention, understanding or use of verbal or nonverbal information. Individuals with these disorders will experience difficulties in learning and exhibit at least average abilities essential for thinking and/or reasoning. Impairments in one or more processes related to perceiving, thinking, remembering or learning leads to learning disabilities. These include, but are not limited to language processing phonological processing visual spatial processing processing speed memory and attention and executive functions (e.g. planning and decision-making) (Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, 2013). Learning disabilities can be a symptom or a syndrome for instant, developmental disorder such as Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Cerebral Palsy, one of the characteristic of the syndrome is having learning disabilities.
According to MOE, 'Intellectual Disabilities' in Malaysia, is being defined as 'Learning Difficulties'. Children with Learning Difficulties include those who are diagnosed as Down Syndrome, Mild Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, Mild Retardation and Specific Learning Disabilities (e.g Dyslexia). Based on data obtained from 'Children with Disabilities in Malaysia' (2013), total registration of learning disabilities as at the end of 2012 was 165,281 people. While, number of new registration on 2011 of child with learning disabilities aged 7-12 was 5700. While new registration in 2012 was 8856. The number of registration has increased by 55% in a year. This shows that the awareness regarding learning disabilities among parents and society has improved over a year.
Malnutrition is a common setback among population with learning disability. Children with intellectual/learning disability are typically experienced troubles in leading a healthy lifestyle due to their cognitive, sensory and physical limitations (Holcomb et al., 2009). These children are unable to prepare food for themselves, requiring help from others. Thus, under-nutrition can be readily caused by inadequate nutrition provision to those individuals who have limited preferences in food consumption (Wong, 2011). In worst case, these children are prone to have poor nutrition that may lead to weight loss and malnourishment due to multiple medical conditions and societal participation issues. On the other hand, overweight and obesity in current population requires increase attention and immediate intervention as the associated secondary medical problems following the excess body weight can adversely affect their functional status. Children with learning disability are more likely to engage in sedentary activities such as watching television, playing computer games or sleeping as their disabilities inhibit them from joining or competing in sports or recreational games that require higher level of physical fitness, cognition and more refined motor skills (Kasser and Lytle, 2005).
Up till now, current available evidence around the prevalence and risk factors associated with overweight and obesity in children and adolescents with LD remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this article is to review numbers of published articles on the prevalence and risk factors associated with malnutrition among children with learning disabilities.