Sub-relato do consumo alimentar de acordo com a classificação NOVA dos alimentos em mulheres em vulnerabilidade social

Abstract

The NOVA food classification organizes foods into four categories, one of which is ultra-processed foods, which activate the brain's reward system, increasing the pleasure of consuming them. Energy intake greater than total energy expenditure can lead to the development of obesity. Women, overweight individuals, and individuals with low levels of education tend to underreport their dietary information. Considering that ultra-processed foods are widely consumed by low-income women, and that they appear to circumvent reward systems, leading to overconsumption, the present study aims to verify whether there is a correlation between underreporting and the consumption of ultra-processed foods. This is a cross-sectional study. Sixty-seven socially vulnerable adult women who were not following any type of diet, with stable body weight and mothers of malnourished children were included. Energy intake (EI) was measured through 24-hour dietary recalls (Rec24h) (for three non-consecutive days, including one weekend day) and the classification of food groups was made according to the NOVA classification. Total energy expenditure (TEE) was assessed through the doubly labeled water method, as well as the percentage of body fat. To verify the relationship between the EI:TEE ratio and the calories ingested from ultra-processed foods, Pearson's correlation was used. And to analyze whether this relationship between the EI:TEE ratio and the caloric intake of ultra-processed foods was maintained after adjustments for age, education and fat percentage, multivariate linear regression was performed. The descriptive data of the sample were presented as mean and standard deviation. The EI:TEE ratio was 0.87, indicating that, on average, the sample reported a food consumption of 87% of energy expenditure and under-reported food consumption by an average of 13%, which shows that energy consumption was lower than energy expenditure, indicating that there are possible under-reporters among the participants. The results obtained indicate that there is a positive and significant correlation between the two variables, where r = 0.43 and P < 0.01. Multivariate linear regression indicated a value of β = 252.39 95%CI [34.50; 470.27]; P = 0.02, which indicates that for each 10% decrease in the EI:TEE ratio, there is a decrease of 25.2 kcal in the reported consumption of ultra-processed foods. There is an inverse association between the reported consumption of ultra-processed foods and the under-reporting of food consumption, indicating that the greater the under-reporting, the lower the reported consumption of ultra-processed foods, and it is reasonable to assume that the sample, when under-reporting food, under-reported ultra-processed foods due to a lower perception of the quantity they consumed. The findings of the present study should provide useful information for future longitudinal studies in order to verify this relationship, in addition to investigating, in a controlled manner, whether the consumption of ultra-processed foods is less perceived and reported by people.