Ambiente alimentar e excesso de peso em usuários do Programa Academia da Saúde

Abstract

Introduction: Overweight represents a serious public health issue, which presents worldwide rise. In this scenario, it is necessary to understand the associated aspects of its development in order to plan effective and sustainable interventions, especially in the current obesogenic food environment. Objective: To verify the association between the consumers food environment and overweight, from databases validated for food environment and for users of the Programa Academia da Saúde (PAS) in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. Methods: This Thesis was conducted using data from a randomized controlled community trial (ECCR), with representative sample from PAS units in Belo Horizonte-MG. 18 PAS units were investigated and all users aged 20 years or more in these units were interviewed. On the individuals level, data from the baseline (n=3.414) were utilized, obtained by face to face interview and from reassessment of 36 months follow up (n=2.371) carried by telephone, and the validation interview. The investigated data were: socioeconomic (sex, age, economic classification, education level, marital status and occupation); health perception; previously weight loss attempts; attendance time on PAS; self-report weight; and anthropometry (weight and height). Parallel to the baseline from ECCR, a food environment audit was conducted on fruits and vegetables (FV) stores in a buffer of 1.600 meters in the surrounding area of the sampled PAS units, totalling 298 audited stores. Investigated data were from the communitys food environment (density of stores and type of commercial stores) and from consumer (hygienic-sanitary conditions, availability, diversity, variety, publicity, and price for FH and ultra-processed foods). With this information, from the individual and the environment, 3 articles were developed, one ecological study, one cross-sectional study and one validity study. The aim of the ecologic study was to validate the food environment of PAS territory and to execute its characterization (Article 1). In the cross-sectional study, the aim was to verify the relation between the consumers food environment and the overweight of PAS users (Article 2); and, ultimately, validate the self-report weight obtained by telephonic interview (Article 3). Results: The audit in the FV stores showed an agreement with the secondary databases in 45,7%. The bulk grocery stores, considered healthy food stores, were the most common stores (61,3%), however, the majority (60.7%) also sells ultra-processed foods. The prevalence of overweight between the users of baseline were high (62,6%), which was associated with variety of available vegetables in the food environment around the PAS. As to the body weight validation, obtained by telephonic interview, showed that men presents adequate reporting, while in women the error on weight estimation was associated with age and nutritional status, being necessary its correction. Conclusion: This work showed the need to validate secondary databases from food environment to obtain more reliable results in research. Thus, it was possible to verify that access to healthy foods in territory of PAS, like vegetables, was associated to overweight for users. The validation of databases obtained by telephone will allow the longitudinal analysis of this result, making its confirmation possible in future. Investing in interventions that favor the supply of vegetables may be a good way to prevent and control overweight.