Associação entre educação alimentar e nutricional em horta escolar e o consumo alimentar entre adolescentes brasileiros: PeNSE 2019

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Adolescence is a phase characterized by increased autonomy and is highly involved in the adoption of health-risk behaviors, such as low consumption of fresh and minimally processed foods, while the consumption of ultra-processed and unhealthy foods becomes increasingly common. Contact with gardens can be a strategy for gaining knowledge and awareness about healthy foods. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between food and nutritional education activities in school gardens and the dietary intake among adolescents in Brazilian schools. METHODS: It was used data from the 2019 National School Health Survey (PeNSE), comprising 157,552 adolescents from Brazilian schools. The exposure was based on the following questions: "Does the school have a garden?" and "Are nutritional education activities conducted with students in the garden?". The consumption of food groups over the last week was evaluated, considering as regular those who reported consuming 5 days or more in the last 7 days. Using Stata/SE software version 17.1, the odds ratio (OR) was estimated via logistic regression with adjustment for sociodemographic variables, considering a p-value <0.05. RESULTS: Among the adolescents, 23.4% studied in schools with gardens (95% CI: 20.8% – 26.2%), and among these, 18.6% of the students also had nutritional education activities (95% CI: 16.1% – 21.3%). Students in schools with nutritional education activities in gardens were 10% more likely to consume vegetables [OR: 1.10 (95% CI: 1.00 – 1.21)] and 19% more likely to consume beans [OR: 1.19 (95% CI: 1.06 – 1.35)]. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of school gardens accompanied by food and nutrition education activities increased the chances of consuming healthy foods, especially vegetables and beans, among students, proving to be a fundamental factor in encouraging the adoption of healthy Habits.