Qualitative Consumption of Processed Foods with Allura Red Additive in Mexican Primary School Children

Abstract

There is a high supply of industrialized food products that contain many additives, such as colorants. To verify the qualitative consumption of Allura Red in primary schoolchildren, the present cross-sectional quantitative work was established under a retrospective expo facto design. On a school child population (5 - 8 years) from the city of Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila, Mexico, selected in a probabilistic way, a questionnaire applied to qualitatively verify the consumption of said additive. Descriptive and frequency analyses applied to the data obtained, as well as the Mann-Whitney U test and Pearson's X2 test (p≤0.05). The child population evidenced a high consumption of processed products containing Allura Red additive, the intake of jellies and candies (p = 0.025 and p = 0.043, respectively) showed differences between girls and boys. There was a very frequent consumption of "red soft drinks”, dairy - yogurt, oatmeal - flour, and box cereals (61 and 54%, respectively). Likewise, a high association was found between the intake of dairy products - yogurt and cereals (p = 0.008), oats and flour for pancakes and cereal in the box (p = 0.010), as well as consumption of candies and jellies (p = 0.000). High qualitative consumption of processed foods with Allura Red additive was found; it's imperative to reduce the excessive consumption of these products by establishing comprehensive strategies.