Percepção sobre estado nutricional e comportamento alimentar de estudantes de nutrição.

Abstract

The construction of body image occurs through several aspects, ranging from feelings, thoughts and even people's behaviors in relation to the structure, shape and size of their bodies, and it is in this context that there can be major distortions in the way of looking at themselves, occurring changes in the way we see body weight, seeing defects and unwanted changes. The present study aims to evaluate the perception of body weight and perception in relation to dysfunctional eating behavior of students studying nutrition at the Federal University of Campina Grande - UFCG, Cuité campus - PB. This is a cross-sectional study, with the target audience being students from the Nutrition course at the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), from the Education and Health Center (CES) in the municipality of Cuité-PB. Data were collected from 146 students, 109 female, 36 male and 1 non-binary individual. The results obtained in relation to the perception of body weight showed eutrophy (52.7%), overweight (35.6%) and underweight (10.3%). Regarding the adoption of restrictive diets, we have a greater part of the public that does not follow restricted diets (70.5%), but a worrying number of students who follow this type of diet (29.5%). When asked about concern about the appearance of their body, 3.4% worry every day, 23% frequently, 28.8% sometimes, 35.8% rarely and 8.1% say they never think about it. The data obtained on feeling remorse for eating foods considered unhealthy showed that students have a strong inclination to eat disorderly, where 47.3% say they always feel remorse, 10.8% frequently, 33.1% sometimes, 27.7% rarely and 20.9% never feel remorse. From the results found, we can see that the fact that they are studying nutrition can influence some issues regarding food choices, especially because they feel pressured to make good choices because they are nutrition students and because they seek to change their body image, a fact that can lead to disordered eating behaviors.