Intervention for the promotion on the consumption of milk and dairy products as a strategy to reduce overweight in adolescents of México

Abstract

Introduction: the consumption of milk and dairy products can play an important role in the maintenance of healthy body weight, since, under normal conditions of individuals, a negative association has been observed between daily intake of calcium contained in milk and dairy products and adiposity markers. Objective: to determine if the consumption of milk and dairy products affects the body weight reduction of adolescents in high school in Mexico City. Methods: community trial with 2,368 adolescents in three phases: description of the initial nutritional status, multidisciplinary educational intervention in the intervention group and evaluation of the changes observed. A food frequency and reminder questionnaire of 24 hours was applied to the participants, anthropometric measures were taken and the Who Anthro Plus® program was used to obtain the nutritional diagnosis. Results: it was found, in the intervention group, that adolescents who never consume whole milk, skimmed milk, fresh cow's cheese and natural yogurt have a higher prevalence of obesity (15.8%, 12.5%, 19.0% and 19.0%, respectively), compared to the adolescents who consume them daily (0.0%, 0.0%, 2.3% and 5.6%, respectively), there being a highly significant difference for the consumption of cheese fresh cow's milk and natural yogurt (p ≤ 0.01). It was possible to increase the frequency of dairy consumption and changes in nutritional status were observed in the intervention group, where the prevalence of obesity decreased from 13.8% to 6.1%. Conclusions: adolescents with higher milk consumption and its dairy products had a lower prevalence of obesity.