No abstract

AIMTo investigate the prevalence of nutritional parameters of risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and kidney diseases in healthy preschool children.METHODSThis is an observational cross-sectional study with 60 healthy children, of both genders, aged two to six years old and 56 mothers, in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Preschool children and their families with regular activities at public schools were invited to paticipate in the study. The following characteristics were assessed: Socio-demographic condictions, clinical health, anthropometric, biochemical, lifestyle and data on food consumption. The 56 healthy children were divided into two groups, overweight (C1) and non-overweight (C2), as well as their mothers, respectively, in overweight (M1) and non-overweight (M2). Nutritional status was defined according to results obtained through the Anthro® Software for nutritional analysis.RESULTSThirty-five children were male, with mean age of 4.44 ± 1.0 years old. Eighty-nine percent of them were eutrophic, 86.7% were sedentary and they had five meals a day. Body mass index (BMI) for age and total cholesterol (TC) was higher on C1 (P = 0.0001) and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c) was higher on C2. Mothers were 32.5 ± 7.1 years old, mostly married and employed. Eighty-six percent of them were sedentary and 62.5% were overweight with BMI = 26.38 ± 5.07 kg/m2. Eighteen percent of the overweight mothers had isolated total hypercholesterolemia (TC levels elevated) and 12.5% had low HDL-c levels. The present study showed an association between overweight and obesity during the preschool years and the correspondent mothers’ nutritional status of overweight and obesity (OR = 4.96; 95%CI: 0.558-44.17). There was a positive correlation between the food risk associated with CVD by children and mothers when their consumption was 4 times/wk (P = 0.049; r = 0.516) or daily (P = 0.000008; r = 0.892).CONCLUSIONAnalyzed children showed high rates of physical inactivity, high serum cholesterol levels and high consumption of food associated with risk for CVD and renal disease. Changes in habits should be encouraged early in kindergarten.

Objective: To characterize sleep and associated factors to their inadequacy, mainly social behaviour and food consumption of children and adolescents. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Sleep information, social behaviour (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), food consumption, demography, nutritional status, lifestyle and biochemical tests were investigated. Participants: Schoolchildren of the 4th grade of the municipal school system of a large Brazilian city. Results: A total of 797 schoolchildren, 50.9% was female, median of 9.7 (9.5-10.0) y old and energy consumption of 1819.7 (1429.9-2334.2) kcal. It was identified 31.6% of overweight and 76.8% reported insufficient weekly practice of physical activity. It was observed a median of 9.6 (8.9-10.5) h of sleep (lower values on weekdays: 9.3 vs 10.5h, P<0.001). In addition, 27% of individuals with inadequate sleep (<9h) enjoy longer screen time daily (≥2h/day) (P=0.05), inadequate bedtime (>22h) or adequate wake-up time (5-7h), study in the morning (P<0.001) and never take a shower before school (P<0.001). There was 9.9% of the sample with poor and very poor sleep quality and a greater probability of always sleep talking, have difficulty getting to sleep and inadequate social behaviour between these in relation to those with positive quality of sleep. There was no association of sleep with the other variables investigated. Conclusions: Sleep impairment contributed to changes in sleep and social behaviour in schoolchildren. The findings of this study may reinforce the importance of developing actions to promote adequate sleep and lifestyle at school age.

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of a nutritional intervention on eating habits and nutritional status of schoolchildren. It is a non-controlled intervention study with children from the 4th grade of elementary of nine public schools of a Brazilian metropolis. Five workshops based on healthy eating habits were performed using ludic activities. Eating habits (food frequency questionnaire) and anthropometry (weight and height) were evaluated before and after the intervention. Nutritional status was obtained by Body Mass Index (BMI)-for-age. McNemar test was performed with 5% significance. We evaluated 613 students with a median age of 9.4 (8.6-11.9) years. After the nutritional intervention, we observed a reduction in the consumption of chips, cookies, candy, artificial juice and soft drinks (p<0.05). There was no significant change in the nutritional status (p>0.05). The intervention had a positive effect on eating habits of schoolchildren which might contribute to future changes on nutritional status.