Food guides. Healthy eating practices. Healthy diet. Food surveys. Food consumption. Adults. Older adults.
The second edition of the Food Guide for the Brazilian Population, published in 2014, provides an expanded the paradigm of healthy eating. It includes recommendations that consider the biological, social, cultural, and environmental aspects related to food. The Guide emphasizes the expansion of people's autonomy for healthy food choices. The Food Guide recommends that on the food classification that considers the type of processing (NOVA classification). It emphasizes the consumption of natural foods instead of ultra-processed foods, which contain high amounts of sugar, salt, and fat. Evaluating the population's adherence to its recommendations is necessary and a challenge. This study aims to analyze the dietary practices of adults and elderly participants in the BRAZUCA (Brazilian Usual Consumption Assessment) Natal study, based on the recommendations of the Brazilian Food Guide. It is a survey with adults and older people in the city of Natal/RN, carried out from 2019 to 2020. A probabilistic sample was obtained by clusters, in two stages (census tracts and households). A standardized questionnaire on the Epicollect 5 digital platform was used, containing demographic and socioeconomic data and a multidimensional scale to measure adherence to healthy eating practices, based on the recommendations of the Brazilian Guide. The scale contains 24 items, with four response options, following a Likert scale: strongly disagree; I disagree; I agree; I strongly agree. The final score can range from 0 to 72 and be classified as low adherence (<32 points), medium adherence (32 to 41 points), or high adherence to the Brazilian Food Guide (>41 points). Prevalence ratio and Poisson regression were performed to verify the association between adherence to the Guide and sociodemographic data. A total of 411 individuals participated in the study, with a mean age of 54.54 (SD 16.99) years. High adherence to the Guide was observed in 46% of the sample, with a mean score of 40.2 (8.2), with a significant association for females (PR=0.92; 95% CI 0.87-0.98), the elderly population (PR=0.87; 95% CI 0.83-0.93) and individuals who declared monthly per capita income ≤1/4 of the minimum wage (PR=1.05; 95% CI 1.01 -1.09). We conclude that being female and being elderly are conditions that predict greater adherence to GAPB while having a low per capita income predicts lower adherence. It is necessary to promote healthy eating based on the dissemination of the recommendations of the Food Guide for adults and older adults.