Respiratory disorders and dietary habits in a cohort of 8-14 years old schoolchildren

Aim : Determine the correlation between the prevalence of respiratory symptoms, sleep disordered breathing (SDB) and dietary habits in a population of primary and secondary schoolchildren, in a small city in Central Italy (Ronciglione, VT). Methods : Subjects were recruited from a non-selected population of students. Parents underwent a questionnaire of 10-items on sleep and respiratory symptoms and 18 questions on dietary habits. Results : In 2012 we enrolled 192 schoolchildren (109 males, mean age 10.6 ± 1.2 years; IC 8.5-14.8 years) similarly distributed by age. The prevalence of obesity was 19.8% whereas respiratory symptoms were 8.3% for asthma and 21.9% for rhinitis. About SBD, the percentage of snoring was 4.7%, 3.1% for sleep apnea and 1% for nocturnal awakenings. Moreover the prevalence of bruxism was 7.3% and was significantly increased in males than in female (11.9% vs 1.2%, p Conclusions : We confirm an increase of SBD in obese children. There is no difference in centile BMI between snoring and non-snoring obese children and we hypotize a role of dietary habits in SDB.