Práticas dos pais ou responsáveis em relação aos hábitos alimentares de crianças pré-escolares da rede pública de Fortaleza-Ceará

Abstract

The promotion of healthy eating habits during the preschool age is essential for the child's health, since it contributes to the development and promotion of a food routine that reflects on a nutritional status from childhood to future phases. It is known that parents are the main educators, including regarding food education, thus influencing children's eating habits. Therefore, knowledge and understanding of the practices of parents or guardians regarding food for children are essential for nurses to elaborate interventions that evaluate and assist them in this process. The objective of this study was to identify the practices of parents or guardians in relation to the eating habits of preschool children students from the public schools of Fortaleza-Ceará. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach, carried out from February to March 2018, with 196 parents or guardians of children aged 2 to 5 years from six Children Education Centers (CEC). Data were collected through the application of two instruments, the socio-demographic characterization and the questionnaire "Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire", a validated version in Portuguese, which consists of a report to measure the practices of parents or guardians about eating habits of preschool children. Data were tabulated and analyzed using the SPSS, considering significant p≤0.05. This research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Ceará. As results, it was identified that the parents or guardians analyzed were predominantly female, with ages between 26 and 35 years, high school level and with some type of employment. It was verified that positive practices were equivalent (50%) for presence and absence of risk, and the negative practices showed a predominance for practices without risk (52%). Regarding the validated instrument, Construct 01 of positive practices obtained the highest mean (Guideline for healthy eating - 4.08 - SD ± 1.13), and, among negative practices, Construct 04 (Restriction for health - 4.26 - SD ± 1.12) was the one with the highest mean. By associating sociodemographic variables with positive eating practices, it was identified that the variable up to basic education and high school showed a statistically significant relationship (p = 0.000; p = 0.037), and, by the association with negative practices, it was detected that only the variable age (greater than 36 years) was significant (p = 0.002). It is concluded that, by identifying the feeding practices of parents or guardians, as they favor positive eating practices, they also favor negative eating practices, which requires a more targeted intervention to enable the promotion of healthy eating habits considering the identified profile.