Adequação Nutricional em Crianças Subnutridas dos 6 aos 59 Meses, em Cantagalo (São Tomé e Príncipe)

• Autor(a) principal: Pisco, Ana
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Poínhos, Rui, Catarino, Elisabete
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/83052
• topic: Ciências da Saúde, Ciências médicas e da saúde; Health sciences, Medical and Health sciences

INTRODUCTION: Undernutrition in children is considered a public health issue, especially in developing countries, and its relation to an inadequate dietary intake is highly recognized. The lack of data concerning to São Tomé e Príncipe in this area makes it imperious to evaluate these childrens nutritional adequacy and to do more similar studies. OBJECTIVES: To know the differences between energetic and macronutrient intake and nutritional recommendations in undernourished children from 6 to 59 months of age in Cantagalo, São Tomé e Príncipe. To assess the relationship between nutritional adequacy and undernutrition type and severity, age, breastfeeding and reported difficulties in access to enough food. METHODOLOGY: In this descriptive study, a survey was applied to 118 caregivers of children from 6 to 59 months of age. Anthropometric and sociodemographic data were collected and a 24 hour recall was applied to assess childrens energy and macronutrient intake. Nutritional adequacy was determined by comparison with the DRI (non-breastfed children) and Dewey and Browns recommendations (for breastfed children). RESULTS: From the sample of undernourished children, 72.9%, 59.3% and 74.6% presented values below the recommendations for energy, carbohydrates and lipids, respectively. For protein, only 14.4% were below the reference values. Older and non-breastfed children tended to be out of the recommendation. Children with moderate chronic undernutrition, comparatively to those with severe chronic undernutrition, showed a higher prevalence of energetic intake inferior to recommendations, but no significant differences were found in terms of macronutrients. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the evaluated undernourished children do not reach energetic and macronutrient recommendations, with protein being an exception. This is worse for older and non-breastfed children.