AVALIAÇÃO DA ACEITAÇÃO ALIMENTAR E DA EFETIVIDADE DE INTERVENÇÕES EDUCACIONAIS INTERDISCIPLINARES SOBRE OS CONHECIMENTOS EM ALIMENTAÇÃO E NUTRIÇÃO E ATIVIDADE FÍSICA EM ESCOLARES

Abstract

Currently, the increase in the prevalence of obesity has become a global health problem. Childhood is considered a favorable and stable period to promote actions that seek healthy eating in order to establish healthy eating practices in the coming years. The objective of this work was to evaluate the food acceptance and the effectiveness of interdisciplinary educational interventions on the knowledge in food and nutrition and physical activity of school children. The present study was carried out in three chapters. In Chapter 1, a bibliographic review and contextualization of the study theme was elaborated. In the second Chapter, the objective was to evaluate the association of sex and nutritional status of school children with food acceptance. In Chapter 3, the objective was to assess the effect of interdisciplinary educational interventions on the knowledge of nutrition and physical activity in school-age children. This is a descriptive, prospective, cross-sectional study carried out in the city of Guarapuava - PR. Children from 10 public schools, enrolled between 2nd and 5th grade, aged 7 to 10 years old, participated. For the first stage of the research (Chapter 2), children were evaluated in terms of nutritional status using the Body Mass Index for age and sex. Food acceptance was analyzed using a non-validated questionnaire. Despite the majority of children presenting a eutrophic nutritional status (58.31%), a high number of students were overweight (40.73%). Girls had greater food acceptance (p<0.05) for foods from the cereal, fruit, vegetable and dairy groups. Boys, on the other hand, had greater acceptance (p<0.05) for foods belonging to the meat and eggs and oils and fats groups, similarly to what was observed for eutrophic children. Overweight children showed lower acceptance for these food groups. In the second stage of the research (Chapter 3), knowledge about food and nutrition and physical activity were assessed using questionnaires applied before and after the interventions. The actions were carried out for 5 months, with two meetings/month, totaling 10 meetings/school. In the pre-intervention, it was found that most children had excellent knowledge of food and nutrition and good knowledge of physical activity (p<0.05). The educational health intervention significantly increased children's knowledge of food and nutrition and physical activity. Both boys and girls increased their knowledge of food and nutrition and physical activity after the application of interdisciplinary interventions (p<0.05). A similar effect was observed for children with different nutritional status. It is concluded that the sex and nutritional status of school-age children are associated with food acceptance. Also, that interdisciplinary educational interventions carried out for children in the school environment improve knowledge in food and nutrition and in physical activity.