Resumen

VILLAGRA, María; MEZA, Eliana  y  VILLALBA, Dora. Educational-Nutritional Intervention on eating habits applied to school children of Asuncion, Paraguay. Mem. Inst. Investig. Cienc. Salud [online]. 2020, vol.18, n.2, pp.63-73. ISSN 1812-9528.  https://doi.org/10.18004/mem.iics/1812-9528/2020.018.02.63.

Certain eating habits and lifestyles acquired in childhood are associated with the risk of suffering chronic non-communicable diseases in adulthood. Currently in Paraguay, school nutritional status represents a public health problem. It is important to establish the implementation of educational-nutritional interventions focused on improving the quality of eating habits, as a possible strategy for the prevention of those diseases. In order to evaluate changes in the quality of eating habits in children who were 10-13 years old, a nutritional educational intervention was carried out in the República del Brasil School of Asunción, Paraguay. This community study included 42 children and their parents. At the beginning and end of the intervention the weight, size, nutritional status, quality of eating habits and type of physical activity were estimated in these school children. During the study, that lasted from March to April 2019, the children were given weekly talks of 60 minutes, while the parents had two talks at the beginning and end of the intervention in which they described their quality of eating habits. After the intervention, it was observed that there were significant improvements in the quality of eating habits. Those children who initially had the need to improve habits subsequently changed to an optimal quality of eating habits, and the same result was observed in their parents. In conclusion, the intervention generated changes in the quality of eating habits of these children and their parents and it was established as part of the school nutritional program in order to create awareness about healthy habits and prevention of diseases.

Palabras clave : quality of eating habits; physical activity; school children; nutritional status; intervention.

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