RESEARCH ARTICLE
Association between Food Intake and Overweight in Children Assisted by Primary Care
Erivelton Sousa Lima1, Amanda de Castro Amorim Serpa Brandão2, Antonio Luiz Gomes Junior1, Luana kelle Batista Moura1, Gerardo Vasconcelos Mesquita1, Adélia Dalva da Silva Oliveira1, Zulmira Hartz3, Carmen Viana Ramos1, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 15
Issue: Suppl-1, M2
First Page: 305
Last Page: 312
Publisher ID: TONURSJ-15-305
DOI: 10.2174/1874434602115010305
Article History:
Received Date: 07/07/2020Revision Received Date: 25/10/2020
Acceptance Date: 28/10/2020
Electronic publication date: 15/12/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
The child feed in the first two years of life is of fundamental importance for a healthy growth and development.
Aims:
To verify the association between food consumption indicators and overweight in children under the age of two, followed up by primary care health professionals.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study was conducted on 232 children assisted by primary care. A structured questionnaire was used with questions on sociodemographic data of mothers or guardians and food intake and anthropometric data of children. The analysis of the association between excess weight and food intake indicators was performed using the Pearson’s chi-square test (χ2) and Fisher’s exact test (f ˂ 5).
Results:
Regarding food intake in children under 6 months of age, 35.1% of the children were exclusively breastfed. Among children at the age of 6 to 23 months: 66.3% were on continued breastfeeding; 16.7% consumed adequate foods at the age of 6 to 8 months; 90.4% consumed foods that belonged to the six food groups; 76.3% consumed food at the minimum frequency and with adequate consistency; 88.9% consumed iron-rich and vitamin A-rich foods, and 59.3% consumed ultra-processed foods. Regarding nutritional status, 24.5% of the children were overweight.
Conclusion:
There was no statistically significant association between overweight and food consumption indicators among the surveyed children. However, exclusive breastfeeding was below the recommended level, a low percentage of the introduction of complementary foods at the appropriate age and high consumption of ultra-processed foods reveal the need to improve the assistance provided by primary care to this group.
