Influence of a Gluten Free Food Guide on Diet Quality and Adherence to the GFD in Youth With Celiac Disease

Background: The only treatment for celiac disease (CD) is the gluten-free (GF) diet which affects every 1 in 100 individuals. Non-adherence to the diet can lead to intestinal damage and nutrient malabsorption, which can negatively impact a critical period of growth and development in children. Despite adherence, the GF diet does not guarantee nutritional adequacy in children and can lead to obesity and chronic disease. A number of studies confirm that children and adults on GFDs often face several nutritional challenges, including low intakes of fibre, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium and high intakes of simple sugars and saturated fats associated with poor diet quality. Prepackaged GF foods are often high in simple sugars and saturated fat while being low in fibre, which are all known risk factors for the development of chronic disease in the adult population. While parents and newly diagnosed children with CD show significant improvements in knowledge about the GF diet after receiving standard-of-care education from healthcare practitioners at the time of diagnosis, some children with CD continue to experience significant challenges with reduced diet quality and nutritional inadequacy while on the GF diet, even after dietary education. Currently, there are no existing nutrition guidelines that are focused on the GFD. To address this issue, the investigation team recently developed a gluten-free food guide (GFFG). The GFFG consists of overall diet recommendations with a layout that mirrors the new Canada's Food Guide, associated teaching materials that address concepts related to nutrition literacy and knowledge as identified in the pre-guide stakeholder engagement with health care providers (RD, RN, MD) and families with children with CD (Mager et al., Br J Nutr 2022). Focus groups and online surveys were conducted for feasibility analysis with end-stakeholders (health professionals, parents/caregivers of children with CD, and adolescents with CD) to enable a comprehensive evaluation of the feasibility of the food guide in terms of content and layout (Mager et al., Br J Nutr 2022).

Study Objective: The study purpose is to compare the impact of dietary counselling using the GFFG versus standard of care (SOC) in children/adolescents and their parent/caregiver newly diagnosed with CD on participant care outcomes (diet quality, nutrition literacy, adherence to the GFD) over six months.

Hypothesis: The GFFG will increase diet quality and parental food literacy and improve adherence to the GFD in newly diagnosed children with CD and their parents over six months.

Sample size: Forty families (20/group) are proposed to enroll in this study. This sample size was based on a convenient sample.

Data Analysis: Data will be expressed as mean (± SD) or median (interquartile range) for parametric and non-parametric variables, respectively (tested by the Shapiro-Wilk test). T-tests (parametric) or Mann Whitney (non-parametric) tests to compare household characteristics (sociodemographic), adherence to the GFD, and DQ between SOC vs SOC+GFFG. Pearson and/or Spearman correlations will be conducted to assess the associations between child DQ and parental nutrition literacy, GFD adherence and household sociodemographics. Chi-square tests will be used to determine significant differences between categorical variables. P value < 0.05 adjusted for multiple comparisons will determine statistical significance.

Inclusion criteria

• Children and adolescents, male and female, 5-18 years of age and their parents.
• Clinically diagnosed celiac disease
• Diagnosis within 3 months

Exclusion criteria

• Children, male and female, <5 years of age
• Celiac disease diagnosis >3 months
• Children/adolescents diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D)
• Not clinically diagnosed with celiac disease