Changes of food habits in school-aged children and adolescents

• Autor(a) principal: Fonseca, Sandra Celina
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Outros Autores: Mourão-Carvalhal, Maria Isabel, Coelho, Eduarda Castro
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34620/eduser.v9i1.92
• topic: Food pattern; Nutrition; Obesity.; Padrão alimentar; Nutrição; Obesidade.

The aim of this study is to compare the food pattern of students who attend different school grades. The sample consisted of 529 adolescents with 13.32(±1.59) years, from a Portuguese public school. Obesity was calculated using BMI. A questionnaire was applied to collect information on the food pattern. The chi-square test was used to compare the two groups. The overall prevalence of overweight + obesity was 22.8%. The group that attended 5th and 6th grades present a higher prevalence of overweight +obesity in (27.9% versus 18.9%, p=.015). Older students skip more meals (breakfast p=.000, lunch p=.009, dinner p=.015), drink more soft drinks (p=.046) and alcoholic drinks (p=.001). Consumption of sweets, fruit, vegetables and milk, are no statistically significant differences between grades. In conclusion, there is a deterioration of an unhealthy food pattern in the passage from the 5th and 6th grades to the 7th, 8th and 9th grades.