Revisão sistemática sobre nível de atividade física e estado nutricional de crianças brasileiras

Abstract

Objective To systematically review the literature on the prevalence and the factors associated with physical activity level and nutritional status of Brazilian children. Methods The electronic database MEDLINE (via PubMed), SciELO, SCOPUS and Web of Science were selected. The search strategy included the descriptors proposed in the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH): "Motor Activity", "Activities", "Nutritional Status", "Overweight", "Obesity", "Body Mass Index", "Child", "Brazil". Results The search allowed the identification of 141 articles, of which 16 studies were considered potentially relevant and were included in the review. Conclusions Studies about nutritional status and physical activity levels in Brazilian children are still scarce, but the work on this has increased in recent years, especially those that use cross designs, as well as questionnaires to measure physical activity; BMI for nutritional status is still widely used. Furthermore, studies that analyzed the amount of hours designated to sedentary behaviors such as watching TV, playing video-games and using the computer, found that these activities took more than two hours every day.

Prevalence of excessive body fat among adolescents of a south Brazilian metropolitan region and State capital, associated risk factors, and consequences

“…In concordance with our results, another study using DXA, performed in the southeast region of Brazil, with 215 adolescents aged 10 to 14 years, found a prevalence of 44.2% of excess fat, without stratification by sex [ 19 ]. The high prevalence of overweight and obesity, as high as 38.9%, was also indicated by a review study composed of 16 researches made in Brazil [ 7 ]. This review study, as well as ours, shows that Brazilian public policies focused on low weight might be equivocal.…”

“…Female adolescents had more sedentary habits (79.3%) when compared to boys (75.2%). This could be a factor in explaining the higher prevalence of excess fat among girls, since the act of watching television has been related to the consumption of high-calorie food [ 7 , 8 ].…”

“…In Brazil, full-time schools are rare. Therefore, the time available for performing sedentary activities (use of television, computer, and video game) is higher than in developed countries [ 7 ].…”

“…Despite there is no concordance in literature, the majority of the studies have not found significant relations between excessive body fat and risk factors as socio-economic level of the families, education level of the parents, among others [ 7 , 12 ].…”

“…This situation raises the hypothesis that in this phenomenon there are sociodemographic and lifestyle differences that can have impact on the different risk factors [ 3 , 5 ]. Brazilian studies have no different conclusions and maintain this discrepancy, with rates ranging from 4.4% to 18% for obesity [ 6 ] and 3.1% to 38.9% for overweight [ 7 ]. This variation is due to the instruments used in the measurements, the methodology used for the cut-off point and the regions of the country being studied [ 6 , 7 ].…”