Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Funded under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1.3, Theme 10.
Improve nutritional and health condition of autism spectrum disorder s...
Coordinator
A set of specific interventions addressing healthy and sustainable eating (including food waste reduction etc) in public canteens and out of home settings will be co-designed and then tested by engaging local users.
The aim of this multidisciplinary task is the design of dissemination and information tools to stimulate an active participation of different target groups to: a) promote of healthy and sustainable nutritional behaviours, b) prevent food waste.
The last decades have seen a surge in policies promoting healthy and sustainable diets. T74.1 will: (1) review existing ex-post evaluations of public policies at the international level; (2) generate new evidence, using robust methods, evaluating international, European, and Italian national, regional policies.
Production of a set of policy-oriented guidelines and set of recommendations based on: (a) current national and international evidence-based; (b) findings and inputs from all tasks and activities, especially WP7.2, WP7.3 and Task 7.3.3; (c) proposals to modify existing legislation; (d) feedback from stakeholders and policymakers.
Report on tailored interventions’ design and testing for public canteens (M34)
Report on tailored interventions’ design and testing in other out of home situations (M34)
Academic and professional training for young researchers and relevant stakeholders (M12)
Tailored dissemination model for healthy and sustainable diets based on the co-creation of ICT, informative and legal tools with different target groups (M30)
Report on evidence-based policies (M34)
Technical report + dissemination document on policy recommendations (M36)
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous and complex group of neurodevelopmental life-long disorders. These clinical conditions impact the subject’s intellectual, social and emotional capacity, altering the proprioceptive and sensorial systems with atypical eating behaviors and food selectivity. As a consequence of this complex clinical picture, ASD subjects show a significantly higher prevalence to develop malnutrition conditions, non-communicable diseases, gastro-intestinal symptoms compared to the neurotypical population. Difficulties in managing them at a domestic level means that these subjects spend most of their days in “center-based services”, responsible for taking care of meals through collective catering services. Nutrition plays a central role in the health of this vulnerable population, in containing the comorbidities associated with the initial clinical picture. The absence of targeted menus at this population increases the risk of rejection with health repercussion and food waste, which in the long term is unsustainable.
Despite that, national dietary guidelines aimed at ASD subjects are not yet available, both for the collective catering and domestic context.
What is described highlights the need to develop a national scientific guideline aimed at collective catering services and targeted to ASD subjects.
To reach this result a multi-centric project, curry out in Rome and Milan, will combine expertise in multiple areas of ASD, collective catering services and secondary prevention. The project interventions will consist in:
Through a targeted intervention and a national scientific guideline validation for food management both at the collective catering and domestic level, the primary outcome is to share scientific results that support a food policy action aimed at ASD subject; the secondary outcome is to improve the health status of this vulnerable population thanks to a national public food policy action.
Menus for ASD subjects that meet their nutritional and sensory needs will allow for great acceptance of the proposed food, with a positive impact on their health status, eating behaviors and consequently a reduction of the waste production.
The results achieved by this project will make it possible to draw up dietary guidelines for this vulnerable population group applicable at a national level, unify the approach adopted by collective catering structures and facilitate caregivers. Furthermore, through public engagement interventions, the entire population will be sensitized to this issue.
