Inhibition-related connectivity predicts irritability risk and resilience across early adolescence.

Monitoring children’s dietary intake and other health behaviours is essential to guiding actions focused on promoting and establishing adequate and healthy eating habits and their maintenance in later years. The need to monitor dietary habits among children has intensified in recent years due to the growing epidemic of overweight and associated diseases among young people worldwide. Despite the relevance of maintaining adequate and healthy dietary patterns, studies assessing the tracking of dietary patterns over the lifespan are scarce, making it difficult to evaluate long-term dietary exposure. In epidemiology, the term ‘tracking’ refers to the tendency of a variable to remain stable over time. In the context of diet, dietary tracking describes the maintenance of nutrient intake or dietary patterns across different stages of life. This concept highlights that eating behaviours acquired in early childhood often persist into adolescence and adulthood. Findings from studies with children and adolescents are mixed, with some studies reporting stability, while others show changes in dietary patterns. Dietary patterns have been identified in some cross-sectional studies in Brazilian children and adolescents. None of these studies investigated the stability of these dietary patterns specifically from childhood to school age, nor the factors related to this possible transition. Thus, this study aimed to achieve the following purposes using data from the Food and Nutritional Surveillance System – SISVAN: (i) to define dietary patterns of children in three developmental windows: early childhood (1 to < 3 years), preschool age (3 to < 6 years) and school age (6 to < 11 years) and to assess transitions over time and (ii) verify the association between exposure to exclusive breast-feeding and the trajectory of patterns from early childhood to school age. These findings should have the potential to assist in developing targeted actions for higher-risk groups and contribute to the prevention and control of diet-related morbidities.