Evaluation of food consumption and prevalence of fuctional intestinal constipation in students of the Nutrition Course

Abstract

The activities attributed to men, whether at school, work, and family, cause interference in their quality of life, such as changes in eating habits, in which they choose easily prepared meals. These changes favor the development of chronic noncommunicable diseases, such as Functional Intestinal Constipation. This paper aims to evaluate the food intake and the prevalence of functional constipation in Nutrition students. Quantitative, cross-sectional study conducted with 60 undergraduates, 55 female and 5 male, aged between 18 and 30 years. Nutritional status was determined by body mass index, food intake by 24-hour recall, analysis was performed using the NutWin v.1.5 program. To identify functional bowel constipation, the Roman III and Bristol Scale criteria were used. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using Biostat v.5.0 using the T Student test to compare mean values and standard deviation. The body mass index presented values of 22.6 (±3.1), characterizing the participants as eutrophic. In relation to food consumption the amount of energy presented mean and standard deviation equal to 2757±551.9 *, protein 99.0±2.6, Lipids 72.8±5.3 *, carbohydrate 310±48.2 * and fiber 16.9±5.9, with significant difference between the consumption of the analyzed nutrients (p<0.05) when compared to the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIS). Regarding functional intestinal constipation, there was a prevalence of 33%. From the results found the high consumption of protein, fat, simple carbohydrate associated with low fiber intake, with high prevalence of functional bowel constipation among college students.