Avaliação do impacto das ações de um programa de educação alimentar e nutricional em uma população de adolescentes

Abstract

The Food and Nutrition Education Program (FNE) for adolescents aims at training on issues on health, in order to encourage improvements in the quality of life helping them to become sowers of healthy eating habits. Objective: Assess changes in food consumption after application of the actions of a nutrition education program carried out with teenagers. Method: Intervention study uncontrolled developed, with 54 adolescents, of low socioeconomic level. enrolled in a non-governmental organization in the city of São Paulo. The EAN Program was implemented in six months, involving meetings with nutritionist, strategic actions, communication and relationship over time for program support and strengthen ties with students. The nutritional status was assessed by anthropometry and it was applied a specific questionnaire to assess knowledge about nutrition and feeding practices related to the main themes discussed in educational activities. Dietary intake was assessed by recall 24h and diet quality by the Diet Quality Index associated with the Digital Food Guide (DQI-DFG), established by Caivano & Domene (2013). It was considered as improvement in dietary patterns increase of at least 5 points in DQI-DFG evaluated pre and post intervention. To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention, we used the variables measured up in pre and post times. The data was put in statistical analysis. Results: Knowledge of the information provided on the food label was higher after the program, 50% of students started reading and 63% came to understand the information on labels of food consumed. There was a positive change dietary pattern in 33% of students on weekdays and 37% on weekends. For both periods the week, there was an increase in food intake of legumes groups, milk and dairy products, fruits and vegetables. 5.6% had a reduction in body mass index. Conclusion: The FNE strategy proved to be effective and was evidenced by improving the nutritional status and dietary pattems and the increase in the level of nutritional knowledge after program implementation, making it a viable method, low cost and applicable to disease prevention and health improvement. The practice of this learning can encourage the reduction of DCNTs, which leads to reduced spending on public health and an improvement in the nutritional status of the population.