Nutritionist finds excess sodium and lack of main minerals on young people’s tables
Ingesting healthier and more appropriate ingredients in your daily diet is not a privilege for teenagers from more economically advantaged families, as one might initially assume. Imperatives of modern life, globalization of consumption, cheaper industrialized foods, especially when of inferior quality, equally determine that adolescents from all social strata develop inadequate eating habits, strongly related to excess weight and the development of chronic non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.
Thesis developed by nutritionist Regina Esteves Jordão in the Postgraduate Science course, in the area of concentration of Child and Adolescent Health at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) at Unicamp and guided by professor Antonio de Azevedo Barros Filho, proposed to estimate nutrient consumption by adolescents aged 10 to 18, living in the city of Campinas, SP. The work analyzes the inadequacy of dietary intake of minerals: calcium, phosphorus, iron, zinc, selenium and sodium, and vitamins: B12, C, D, E, thiamine, retinol and folate, in the food consumption profile of adolescents, in in relation to the Recommended Dietary Intake, according to gender, age and level of education of the head of the family.
The results showed the inadequacy due to the lack of consumption of the main minerals considered important in the daily diet, with the exception of sodium, which is consumed in excess, which is worrying, according to the researcher: “Around 80% of the adolescents evaluated have an intake insufficient calcium, remembering that the peak of bone mass formation occurs up to the age of 18, and together with phosphorus it participates in bone mineralization, with milk and dairy products as the source. Iron, present in meat products and dark vegetables, is particularly important for girls reaching the reproductive stage, although the levels of deficiencies observed among adolescents do not generally result in anemia. Selenium and zinc are important antioxidants and the latter plays a fundamental role in sexual maturation. Excess sodium consumption, especially among boys, can lead to hypertension, which is beginning to have a high prevalence among adolescents in Brazil.”
As for vitamins, more than 80% of the adolescents surveyed do not ingest enough vitamins A, D and E. Vitamins E and C are potent antioxidants and act in the prevention of chronic diseases and D is currently studied as a prohormone, and its deficiency would be related to weight gain. Vitamin A (retinol), found in natural orange foods, rich in carotenoids, and in products of animal origin, is particularly related to visual acuity, which is a public health problem in some regions of the country. Vitamins from the B complex, such as B1, B9 and B12, are extremely important in energy production, protein and lipid metabolism and regulation of the body's functioning. A lack of B12, found in foods of animal origin, can lead to anemia as it is related to cell development.
Based on what is already known and the results endorsed, the researcher says that today family income does not determine healthy eating habits, but that they tend to be better depending on the level of education. Industrialized products are cheaper and are also accessible to low-income segments, who buy the most popular biscuits, snacks, fried foods, juices and sugary soft drinks, avoiding the most popular brands. She emphasizes: “In the area of nutrition we no longer talk about income in relation to inadequate eating habits, but about level of education and that is why my analysis focused on the education of the head of the family, who could be father, mother, grandparents, and I found that, when this is higher, the tendency is for a better intake of nutrients”. We then reach a fundamental point, the importance of education, not just food and nutrition, because the more educated individual is able to access more qualified information and begins to have better discernment and awareness of their food choices, which helps, although not always be enough.
When estimating the high lack of nutrients necessary to maintain a healthy body in the population of adolescents in Campinas, she concludes that the consumption of the vitamins and minerals analyzed is very inadequate, being worse among girls, as they are not eating the foods they contain. the nutrients they need. It is believed that girls are more influenced by stereotypes such as, for example, the need to be thin, especially after the age of 13.
Regina recommends a return to retail and the kitchen and defends quality of life without giving up the pleasure of eating: “We need to look for strategies to make what we like to eat healthier, such as combining preparations with vegetables and salads with barbecue” . The challenge is how to reach teenagers so that they adopt healthy eating habits, because they are affected by puberty, by the need to establish their identity, to fit into a social group, to assert their opinion in relation to family members, factors that aggravate the lack of vision for the future regarding health, which often, even in adults, only manifests itself when they begin to be affected by certain illnesses.
Imagine this in a teenager, whose perspective is on today and not on what might happen 30 years later, says the author, who adds: “But, these good habits must be cultivated since childhood, in the family itself, with the pleasure from the table, however, it is not enough to occasionally eat foods with nutritional content appropriate to the age, they must be consumed regularly and in appropriate quantities”.
Tendencies
The daily diet of teenagers with foods deficient in several nutrients, considered to be of low nutritional quality, will reflect what tomorrow's adults and elderly people will be like. It is important that the teenager has nutritional re-education so that future problems do not arise. For the researcher, bad eating habits arise, in large part, because faced with the dictates of modern life, teenagers are not encouraged to sit at the table to eat what is cooked at home with their family.
For her, the main sources of adequate nutrients are colorful foods, which are found in vegetables: vegetables and fruits, in balance with other foods. “We don’t eat nutrients, we eat food, and if there is a dietary deficiency it is because the choices are wrong.”
Sources
The data used by the researcher comes from the ISACamp-nutri project – 2015 and 2016, research that aims to investigate the pattern of food consumption and nutritional status of adolescents, adults and the elderly, which is developed by the Department of Pediatrics of the Faculty of Sciences Doctors (FCM) from Unicamp and coordinated by pediatrician Antonio de Azevedo Barros Filho. This project is an offshoot of ISACamp, coordinated by doctor Marilisa Berti de Azevedo Barros, from the Department of Public Health at FCM/Unicamp.
The population of adolescents in the city of Campinas is represented in the research in this population-based survey, which uses a probabilistic sample, with a cross-sectional method, which collects information from the individual only once. To determine food consumption, a 24-hour recall was used, that is, a survey of what the person ate the previous day, specifying quantity, time and place where they were. The interviews were carried out every day of the week so that information arising from sporadic situations could be diluted. This detail allowed the data to be converted into nutritional composition using software acquired by Unicamp with resources from Fapesp, called NDS-R – Nutrition Data System For Research, from the University of Minnesota.
national overview
With a view to estimating nutrient consumption by Brazilian adolescents, Regina Jordão carried out a systematic review with meta-analysis, in the databases PubMed, LILACS, SciELO, EMBASE and WEB OF SCIENCE, including publications in Brazil in the last ten years. In this case, the guiding question was: how is the consumption of nutrients among adolescents in Brazil, here considering not only the minerals and vitamins already mentioned, but also calories and the macronutrients carbohydrates, proteins and lipids.
The results showed that, despite the estimated consumption being adequate for macronutrients and energy intake, a low intake of micronutrients, vitamins A, C and E and the minerals calcium, iron, and zinc, in addition to excess sodium, were very similar to what was observed in Campinas, which reflects the inadequacy of food consumption among Brazilian adolescents, and shows the importance of population, local and long-term surveys for the appropriate direction of food and nutritional education actions regarding diet quality.