Abstract

FLORES, Zilá Gomes de Moraes; SOUZA, Elisabete Laurindo de  and  SOUZA, Edegilson de. Evaluation of nutritional status of children aged 0 to 5 years old in Early Childhood Education of the Municipal Education Network of Itajaí/SC. Motri. [online]. 2017, vol.13, suppl.1, pp.14-20. ISSN 1646-107X.

The increasing number of children from 0 to 5 years old, evaluated as overweight in recent years, motivated teams of the Health Program at School and the School Feeding Program of the Municipal School Network of Itajaí/SC (Brazil) to conduct a research in order to verify the nutritional status of students regularly attending the Early Childhood Education centers. We seek to minimize the effects of this condition throughout life. We adopted the cross-sectional, descriptive and field study method, with data collection between April and July 2016, from 64 Early Childhood Education Centers. Data shows that 925 children, representing 1/3 of the total number of students aged 0 to 5 years and 11 months old, are in an overweight situation. From those, 610 were with high weight for the age, corroborating the waistline perimeter data (WP) with children at risk; 175 children were diagnosed with thinness and, of these, 65 also have low weight for their age. Thus, these children require special attention of those involved. We considered, therefore, the study presented extremely important as it may trigger prevention actions and immediate intervention.

Keywords : physical education; early childhood education; childhood obesity; nutrition evaluation.

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