Association between nutritional status and snacks dietary patterns from an elementary school children in Sintra

Abstract

Introduction: Portuguese children have one of the highest rates of overweight/obesity among European countries (31,5%) [1]. Snacks are an important target in the prevention of overweight as they are modifiable components of diet and should be containing fruits, vegetables, nuts, cereals and dairy products [2]. The present study aimed to identified dietary pattern of children snacks and evaluate their association with nutritional status.

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional observational study included 61 children of both gender of elementary school in Sintra region. A written informed consent was obtained from parents of children and the study was carried out in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 as revised in 2000. The nutritional status was assessed by anthropometric measures, percentiles and z-scores. Food consumption patterns was collected by registers photographs with covered a period of three non-consecutive days. Foods were coded and converted to gram weights by photographs book reference [3] and registers photographs. Labels information and Food Composition Chart (INSA) were used to analyze the nutritional composition of the food. Adequacy of snacks was evaluated by comparison of mean intake of energy and nutrients to Institute of Medicine recommended daily intakes [4]. Association between the dietary pattern and nutritional status were evaluated with Spearman’s correlation coefficient. A value of p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: The mean snacks calories, was 378.5kcal (±136.4) and the mean of snacks macronutrients was 10.9g, 14.1g and 53.9g, for protein, fat and carbohydrate, respectively. Regarding to sugar, the intake mean was 26.7g. Concerning nutritional status evaluation, 24.6% children are obese and 14.8% are pre-obese. No association between nutritional status and snacks dietary pattern was observed (p > 0.05).

Discussion and conclusions: The nutritional composition characterization of snacks reveals that this meal was above the recommended average as well as the mean of carbohydrate and lipid intake (22%) [4]. This study showed no association between the snacks dietary pattern and the children nutritional status, however the results provide the information that snacks dietary patters should be enhancement in order to improve nutritional status of school children.

Acknowledgements

The authors thanks to Unidade de Cuidados na Comunidade Abraçar Queluz do Agrupamento dos Centros de Saúde de Sintra and Escola Básica nº1 de Massamá, Agrupamento de Escolas Miguel Torga to allow study employed and to Nutrition Sciences Bacherol coordenator of IUEM for the curricular internship conditions.