Resumen

CENTURION-BERNAL, Erika Giselle et al. Knowledge, practices and alimentary attitudes of vegetarians in Paraguay. Mem. Inst. Investig. Cienc. Salud [online]. 2018, vol.16, n.1, pp.19-25. ISSN 1812-9528.  https://doi.org/10.18004/mem.iics/1812-9528/2018.016(01)19-025.

The boom of vegetarian diets is mostly related to health benefits, treatment of certain pathologies and a balanced diet, but at the same time to animalism and moral principles. The objective of this study was to evaluate the knowledge and describe practices and alimentary attitudes of vegetarians in Paraguay from May to July 2017. One hundred and forty one questionnaires were collected, 132 complied the study requirements. Most of the respondents were female (80%), the mean age was 29±8.1 years, 93% of them has tertiary educational level, most of the respondents were residents of the Central Department (87%), and their main information source was health professionals (12%) followed by the use of internet (11%). Among them, 44% consume alimentary supplements while the main reasons to opt for a vegetarian lifestyle were animalism and moral principles (51%). On the other hand, 25% found difficult to attend meals and social meetings. The surveyed vegetarians mostly presented a regular knowledge followed by insufficient with regard to their lifestyle and an insufficient knowledge concerning critical nutrients. In relation to their practices, a lot of them replaced animal proteins for those of vegetal origin obtaining information from diverse sources. Attitudinally they believed that their diet favored their health and corporal image, and therefore they recommended it though they had suffered discrimination in some moment of their lives through criticism and jibes about their lifestyle.

Palabras clave : vegetarianism; knowledge; practices; attitudes.

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