Eating habits: their relationship with the nutritional status of schoolchildren in the city of Azogues, Ecuador

Introduction: there is sufficient scientific evidence that nutrition positively and negatively influences health throughout life. An inadequate diet from gestation is associated with retardation of growth, psychomotor and intellectual development, and an excessive diet leads to overweight, obesity and chronic non-communicable diseases. Objective: to determine the association of dietary habits and nutritional status based on anthropometric and dietary indicators of schoolchildren from the city of Azogues, Ecuador, 2016. Method: a descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted with simple random sampling in children of both genders. They were given a form for the collection of data along with anthropometric assessment and the Krece Plus rapid nutritional test to determine their eating habits. The variables were expressed in absolute and relative frequencies, using Chi square test for the association between variables. Results: the prevalence of overweight was 20.3%; the predominance of obesity was 17.8% (Female: 13.7%, Male: 4.1%) and malnutrition due to deficit was 1.3% (Female: 0%, Male: 1.3%). Food habits reflect a frequency of 66% of the population with average quality of eating habits, 25.4% with low quality and only 8.57% with high quality of habits. Conclusions: overweight and obesity were closely related to eating habits and body mass index, so these factors must be taken into account in order to implement primary prevention policies that allow a decrease in the prevalence of these health problems