Valoración del estado nutricional en adolescentes de la Unidad Educativa Paccha. Cuenca, 2023

Abstract

Background: Adolescence is a stage of physiological changes and changes in lifestyle, diet and physical activity, factors that are determinants of variations in nutritional status. Objective: Determine the nutritional status of adolescents who attend the Paccha Educational Unit, period October 2022 - April 2023. Method: A descriptive study was carried out with 167 people. Data was collected and analyzed in SPSS version 21.0. Central tendency (mean) and dispersion (standard deviation) statistics were used. Data were presented with simple and contingency tables with frequencies and percentages. Results: The early adolescence group predominated (48.5%); a mean age of 13.68 years (± 1.65 years) was observed. Women prevailed with 59.3%. A higher prevalence of people with normal felling (43.1%) was observed; and a mean height of 1.52 m (± 7.8 cm) was obtained. Most people have normal weight (55.7%); a prevalence of 26.3% was identified for overweight and 8.4% for obesity; the mean observed BMI was 21.23 kg/m2 (± 3.18 kg/m2). 62.3% of people performed physical activity. 55.1% of people had a medium level of eating habits. 16.8% of overweight people did not perform physical activity. A considerable number of people (12%) with a high level of eating habits were overweight and obese. Conclusions: High numbers of overweight and obesity are observed, which correspond to the lack of exercise.