OBJECTIVE: To perform a review of studies of food consumption and nutritional adaptation in
Brazilian infants pointing the main findings and limitations of these studies.
DATA SOURCE: The articles were selected from Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em
Ciências da Saúde (Lilacs) (Latin-American and Caribbean Literature in Health
Sciences), Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) and Science Direct in
Portuguese and in English. The descriptors were: ''food consumption'',
''nutritional requirements'', ''infant nutrition'' and ''child''. The articles
selected were read by two evaluators that decided upon their inclusion. The
following were excluded: studies about children with pathologies; studies that
approached only food practices or those adaptation of the food groups or the food
offert; and studies that did not utilize the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI). DATA SYNTHESIS: Were selected 16 studies published between 2003 and 2013. In the evaluation of
the energy consumption, four studies presented energetic consumption above the
individual necessities. The prevalence of micronutrients inadequacy ranged from
0.4% to 65% for iron, from 20% to 59.5% for vitamin A, from 20% to 99.4% for zinc,
from 12.6% to 48.9% for calcium and from 9.6% 96.6% for vitamin C. CONCLUSIONS: The food consumption of Brazilian infants is characterized by high frequencies of
inadequacy of micronutrients consumption, mainly iron, vitamin A and zinc. These
inadequacies do not exist only as deficiencies, but also as excesses, as noted for
energetic consumption.