Estado nutricional e estilo de vida de trabalhadores vinculados ao Programa de Alimentação do Trabalhador no Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the nutritional status of workers in food and beverage industries linked to the Worker’s Feeding Program (WFP) in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, to identify the prevalence of risk for Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCD) and evaluate the lifestyle of these workers. It is a descriptive, cross-sectional and retrospective study, involving 05 industries located in the Great Natal / RN, whose information was obtained from the database of the research project Evaluation of the Worker Feeding Program in Rio Grande do Norte conducted in the year of 2014. Sociodemographic, anthropometric and lifestyle information were obtained. The information was organized in spreadsheets and analyzed for percentage values or in measures of central tendency and dispersion. In all, 218 workers were obtained, most of them male (73.9%); (54.7% of males and 54.4% of females) had higher prevalence of high school graduation. The average income was equivalent to 1.63 (dp = 1.29) and 1.75 (dp = 1.54) minimum wages for men and women, respectively. According to the anthropometric evaluation, 61.5% of the men had pre-obesity or some degree of obesity, the other ones being classified as eutrophic (38.5%). in the female population 54.4% were pre-obese or some degree of obesity and the others in eutrophy (43.8%). The prevalence of metabolic risk according to Waist Circumference (WC) was 32.9% among men and 56.2% among women. Regarding lifestyle variables, tobacco users accounted for 7.3% in both sexes, while 47.7% of the workers reported consuming alcohol, being 79.8% male. The majority of those evaluated had some type of mild activity (77.2% of women and 83.9% of men), while a few were involved in moderate or intense activity (22.8% of women and 16.1% of men). In view of the above, it is necessary to develop educational actions to promote healthy habits, as well as the need to perform nutritional evaluation of this public periodically, aiming at monitoring and improving the nutritional profile.