Custo e tempo como obstáculos para uma alimentação adequada e saudável

Abstract

The Food Guide for the Brazilian Population presents a set of information and recommendations on healthy eating practices at the individual and collective levels, aiming to promote the health of individuals, families and communities. The fifth chapter deals with understanding and overcoming potential obstacles to adopting proper and healthy eating, including cost and time. The aim of the present study was to investigate the occurrence of potential obstacles to adequate and healthy eating, time and cost, in students from the Federal University of Pampa, Itaqui/RS campus. This is an observational cross-sectional study conducted with freshmen students at the Federal University of Pampa, Itaqui/RS campus, in 2019. The following study outcomes were considered two potential obstacles to the adoption of adequate and healthy eating: cost and time. The exposure variables investigated were gender, age, housing composition, occupation, economic class and study shift. Data collection took place in april and may 2019, in the classroom. The collected data were reviewed, double entered in EpiData 3.1 software, and exported to Stata 12.1 software, where statistical analyzes were performed. 207 students participated in the research. More than 50% of students pointed out that a food-based diet is more expensive than a natural-food diet; 53.6% considered the price of fruits, vegetables and/or vegetables to be cheap or reasonable; 76.3% have already stopped buying these same foods due to the price; and 51.2% considered that the difficulties in having a proper and healthy diet are due to the high price of healthy food. Regarding time, 58.7% of students did not consider themselves organized with their time, 31.4% reported that they are apprehensive when they need to prepare a meal; 69.9% have already failed to prepare a meal for lack of time; and 50.8% responded that the lack of time makes it difficult to adopt an adequate and healthy diet. Cost variables were associated with gender, age, housing composition, economic class and study shift; and the variables on time with gender, age, housing composition, occupation and shift of study. It can be observed that more than half of college students face obstacles to having a proper and healthy diet.