Hábitos nutricionales, estado nutricional y su relación con el rendimiento académico en escolares de la Unidad Educativa Fiscomisional "Corazón de María" del Cantón Biblián, 2019.

Abstract

Background: Nutritional habits have a great influence on the nutritional status of schoolchildren, either due to excess or deficit of nutrients and is related to academic performance. Objective: To determine the nutritional habits, nutritional status and its relation with the academic performance in schoolchildren of the “Corazón de María” Fiscomisional Educational Unit of the Biblián canton, 2019. Methods and materials: A cross-sectional analytical study was carried out, with a sample of 161 children from 7 to 12 years old, “Heart of Mary” Fiscomisional Educational Unit of the Canton Biblián 2019. A previously validated survey was applied to determine nutritional habits, nutritional status and its relationship with academic performance. The data were processed in the statistical program SPSS v.23.0, the chi-square test was used to determine association between the variables with 95% confidence interval. Results: 8-year-old schoolchildren predominated with 38.5%, female gender 52.2%, 4th grade schooling 46.6% and urban residents 54%. There was evidence of good nutritional habits evaluated for 82.6%. According to the nutritional status, normal weight prevails with 54.7%, there was only 1 student underweight (0.60%), 24.2% of schoolchildren surveyed with overweight and 20.5% with grade 1 obesity. There are students who only reach the learning, being higher in the general average with 6.2%, followed by math 5.65% and 3.7% in language and literature. No statistically significant association was found between nutritional status and school performance in the subjects (p ≥ 0.05). Only a significant association was found between schooling and academic performance with p = 0.004. Conclusions: no significant association was found between nutritional habits, nutritional status and academic performance, but with schooling. These data will form the basis for future research.