Análise do consumo de alimentos ultraprocessados pelo público infantil nas fases pré-escolar e escolar: uma revisão integrativa.

Abstract

The analysis of consumption of ultra-processed foods by children in preschool stages and school is extremely important to understand the eating habits of this age group and their impacts on health and development. In this sense, the objective of this review integrative approach was to investigate, in the literature of the last fifteen years, the consumption of foods overprocessed by schoolchildren. The collection of studies included in this review was carried out by through an online electronic search on PubMed, SciELO, Medline, Lilacs and Google Scholar, with the aim of collecting national and international scientific articles. international. The terms used for the research were pre-school consumption, pre-school, school, childhood, school processed foods, preschool ultra-processed foods, ultra-processed childhood foods and their respective translations into Portuguese and Spanish. In all the works analyzed, the authors consistently state that changes in dietary patterns, such as increased consumption of ultra-processed foods and beverages and reduction in the consumption of traditional foods, which naturally have less processing, are determinants of obesity and related chronic diseases. Therefore, further studies should investigate the mechanisms underlying the associations of characteristics of ultra-processed products with dietary and metabolic effects.