Parental child feeding practices and growth status of Orang Asli children in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between parental child feeding practices with growth status of Orang Asli (OA) children in Negeri Sembilan.Design/methodology/approachThis is a cross-sectional study conducted amongst 190 OA children aged 4–6 years studying at Tabika KEMAS OA in Negeri Sembilan. Mothers were interviewed to obtain socio-demographic information while feeding practices were assessed using Malay version of Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ-M). Growth status of the children were determined using WHO ANTHRO Plus software. Three indicators of growth status assessed were weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ) and body mass index (BMI)-for-age (BAZ) z-scores.FindingsThe mean score for feeding practices used by the mothers while feeding their child showed that most of the mothers practiced modelling (3.71 ± 0.82), encouraging balance and variety (3.52 ± 0.76) and environment (3.66 ± 0.66) while the practice of restriction to weight (1.85 ± 0.79) and emotional regulation (2.20 ± 0.96) were low. Most of the OA children had normal WAZ (70.0%), HAZ (71.1%) and BAZ (84.2%). Amongst the three indicators of growth status, BAZ was used to study the relationship with feeding practices. The use of feeding practices such as pressure (r = −0.34, p