Densidade energética da dieta de trabalhadores de São Paulo e fatores sociodemográficos associados*

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing the energy density (ED) of the diet of workers from the city of São Paulo, Southeastern Brazil, and the way this is associated with socio-demographic characteristics, as well as evaluating the relationship between ED and nutrient intake. A cross-sectional study evaluated the diet of 852 workers using the 24-hour dietary recall; one recall was applied to all individuals and a second one was applied to a sub-sample in order to adjust intrapersonal variability. The ED of the diet was calculated using three methods: inclusion of all solid foods and beverages, excluding water (ED 1); inclusion of all solid foods and beverages containing at least 5 kcal/100g (ED 2); and inclusion of all solid foods, excluding all beverages (ED 3). Linear regression was used to analyze the relationship between ED and socio-demographic variables and the relationship between ED and nutrients was evaluated using Pearson coefficient correlation. Considering the workers' diet, the ED values observed were 1.18 kcal/g, 1.22 kcal/g and 1.73 kcal/g for the ED 1, ED 2, ED 3 methods, respectively. In the multiple regression models, only the age variable was maintained in the final model and showed an inverse association with all ED methods. ED 3 showed an increase in energy density for non-white individuals. Of all studied nutrients, protein was the only one that was not significantly correlated with ED 3 (p = 0.899). The young adults studied had a higher energy-density diet, representing a priority group for nutrition interventions. Regardless of the calculation method used, there is a correlation between ED and nutrients.