Habit and food consumption of students from a brazilian public university.

Abstract

The objective of this paper is aimed at tracing the habit and food consumption profile of students from a brazilian public university by an adapted Food Frequency Questionnaire. The present study was done among a population of freshmen aged from 19 to 27 years old, enrolled in first year at Nutrition and Nursing courses from a brazilian public university. The students’ food consumption had been analyzed by a nutritious frequency questionnaire, the statistic calculations were developed by using the Software Epi version 3.0 (2002) and SPSS (2003) and a descriptive statistic was made aiming at finding the studied population nutritious profile. The results showed that 87, 0% of the students were female; 60, 7% were students of the nutrition course and 96, 3% lived in the same city they studied; 46, 3% were following or had already followed some type of diet, 57, 4% of them have said to consume diet/light products or whole wheat grains and it had been verified a high frequency consumption of bread, fat, sugar and soda. It had also been verified a low frequency consumption of fruits, vegetables, milk and dairy products. Finally, it was concluded that the importance of the development of educational strategies that emphasize the value of healthy nutrition to prevent future health problems.