Efeito da percepção do ambiente na qualidade da dieta por idosos de uma cidade do sul do Brasil

Abstract

Adopting a healthy diet is not merely a question of individual choice, since there are several factors of physical, economic, political, cultural and environmental nature that affect positively and/or negatively people's eating habits, such as the neighborhood in which they live. Thus, the environment has been gaining much attention as an influential factor in the adoption of a healthy lifestyle, regardless of age and social conditions. The relationship between the environment and its residents has a strong influence on health status and can represent the difference between independence and dependence for all individuals, especially the elderly. The purpose of this study was to analyze the elderly’s perception of the environment in the maintenance of a healthy diet, in a city of southern Brazil. The study sample had 30 older adults, each 10 were residents of 3 selected neighborhoods, with higher, middle and lower income respectively. To evaluate the environment perception, the adapted version of the Neighborhood Environmental Walkability Scale (NEWS) was used and to investigate the diet quality, a 24-hour Food Reminder was applied, through which the Diet Quality Index (IQD). As result, it was observed that the neighborhood with the highest percentage of elderly people with inadequate diet (46.15%) is the one with the lowest socioeconomic level and the neighborhood with the highest percentage of elderly people with adequate diet (41.18%), is the highest class neighborhood. As for the environment, only the question about having flat streets close to home showed a statistically significant difference (p =0.025) among the elderly groups with inadequate and adequate diets, with a higher percentage of elderly people perceiving near the his house flat streets in the group with inadequate diet. There was no statistically significant difference between the group with the appropriate diet and the group with an inadequate diet in regard to the questions about the time they would take walking from their home to food markets and food selling stores located in their neighborhood. It was concluded that the environment perceived by the elderly does not significantly influence the quality of their diets. However, older people living in neighborhoods with a higher socioeconomic level tend to have a more adequate diet than the elderly living in neighborhoods of lower socioeconomic status. It has also been realized that the transportation time from their home to the neighborhood food selling places does not interfere in the quality of their diets.