Abstract

Author(s): Gomes, Ana Paula Fernandes; Castanheira, Marcelo; Pereira, Sandra

Introduction: The consumption of fruits and vegetables represents a food practice commonly associated with protection against chronic non communicable diseases, whose level of information is scarce in food consumption studies with elderly individuals.

Objective: To Know about fruits and vegetables consumption by the elderly and its related factors.

Methodology: A cross-sectional analysis of the healthy aging program database was carried out. Only female participants, over 60 years old, who were regularly enrolled in the program and answered the complete survey questionnaire, were selected. From the frequency of consumption, the variables were low consumption of fruits, low consumption of vegetables and both situations, corresponding to the first tertiles. The latter were analyzed for socio demographic and health characteristics.

Results: The sample consisted of 59 elderly women, with a median age of 75 years old, retired, low education level and family income from 1 to 3 minimum salaries that lived alone and maintained a lifestyle where few women reported consuming alcoholic beverages and many practiced physical exercises. The most prevalent morbidity was hypertension (67,8%), and most of them used two to four medications (86,4%). The fruits and vegetables most frequently consumed were banana, orange, papaya, apple, tomato, lettuce and carrot.

Conclusion: There was an association between lower consumption of vegetables and / or fruits with increasing age, decreased income, living alone, consuming alcoholic beverages, not practicing physical activity, not snacking and increased use of medications.