Abstract

Author(s): Fidalgo Ramos Nogueira, Luciana; Soares, Amanda; Doratioto Albano, Renata; Marqueze, Elaine Cristina

Introduction: The high prevalence of overweight and obesity continues to pose a challenge for health systems. Therefore, community-based nutrition intervention programs are relevant to public health and need to be better investigated.

Objective: To analyze the factors associated to the non-reduction of the body mass index (BMI) of adult and elderly women after participating in a nutritional intervention program.

Methods: A quasi-experimental study was carried out to evaluate an individualized nutritional intervention with 2,512 women (2,129 adults and 383 elderly) attended by a nutrition clinic. A bivariate and multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the factors associated with no decrease in BMI after the intervention.

Results: Most of the women presented a reduction of the body weight after the intervention, being the greater proportion among the elderly women. For adult women, having private medical care and participating in the program for a period of less than or equal to 30 days were factors associated with not decreasing BMI. For the elderly, the associated factors were deglutition problems and to participate in the program for a period of less than or equal to 30 days.

Discussion: The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the nutritional intervention program. Concomitantly, they point to the need for other factors involved in the weight loss process to be worked together to make the intervention even more effective, since the observed reduction was not enough to change the BMI classification of the participants.

Conclusions: The intervention was effective in reducing BMI; however, factors related to the time of adherence to the intervention, health, individual and social aspects influence the non-BMI decrease in adult and elderly women.