Impact of nutritional education in groups in the improvement of eating habits in women

Abstract

Introduction: the excess of ingestion of food that is rich in fat and/or simple sugars triggers an alteration of the nutritional state in women. Thus, nutrition can help in feminine life quality, for a balanced eating is necessary, that contains all the nutrients indispensable for the good work of the organism, associated to the regular practice of exercises. Nutritional interventions from group care aim to provide the patient an interactive and reflexive environment of learning, what makes possible the change of habits in a collective way. Objetive: it is a review of literature about the impacts of nutritional education in the improvement of women’s eating habits. Methodology: a review of literature existent in the data bases Biblioteca Virtual em Saude (BVC) and Scientific Electronic Library Online (Scielo) and Google Academico was performed. 15 publications between the years of 2010 to 2016 were selected for suiting the criteria of inclusion initially stated. Results and Discussion: the studies with obese women show good results when there is the use of eating reeducation practices, being that the loss of weight occurred with greater intensity when a hypocaloric diet and the group orientation were allied to the regular practice of physical activity. Another relevant aspect was the analysis of interviews revealing that these programs helped in changes in eating both in qualitative and quantitative aspects. However, some studies showed that women that had inadequate eating habits, after the intervention, presented an improvement in this pattern, except with respect to the consumption of fibers, which remained low. Conclusion: thus, the impact of the nutritional education activity collaborates to the improvement of women’s eating habits. Group nutritional education should, therefore, be encouraged, for it is of low cost and provides moments of discussions about difficulties, adhesion to the treatment, socialization and self-perceived improvements.