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ARS Home » Plains Area » Houston, Texas » Children's Nutrition Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #362086
Title: Brazilian children’s dietary intake in relation to Brazil’s new nutrition guidelines: A systematic review

Author
item BARCO LEME, ANA - Universidade De Sao Paulo
item FISBERG, REGINA - Universidade De Sao Paulo
item Thompson, Deborah - Debbe
item PHILIPPI, SONIA - Universidade De Sao Paulo
item NICKLAS, THERESA - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)
item BARANOWSKI, TOM - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)

Submitted to: Current Nutrition Reports
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/7/2019
Publication Date: 3/30/2019
Citation: Barco Leme, A.C., Fisberg, R.M., Thompson, D.J., Philippi, S.T., Nicklas, T., Baranowski, T. 2019. Brazilian children’s dietary intake in relation to Brazil’s new nutrition guidelines: A systematic review. Current Nutrition Reports. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-019-0261-6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-019-0261-6

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: This systematic review reports the latest scientific evidence, from cross-sectional and cohort studies, describing the dietary intake of children and adolescents from Brazil. The goal of the review was to describe intakes according to Brazil's new food classification system (NOVA) which classifies foods according to the degree of processing, i.e., unprocessed/minimally processed, processed culinary ingredients, processed food, and ultra-processed food. Due to a paucity of data using the NOVA classification system, studies with other intake descriptors were included. Results using the NOVA system showed a somewhat high intake of (ultra-)processed items, than of minimally processed items. Studies using other methods of dietary assessment showed not only high intake of sources rich in fat, sugar, and sodium, most of them processed items (e.g., savory snacks and sweets) but also intake of fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. Overall, the literature was marred by inconsistencies and variation in study definitions and methods making it hard to make firm conclusions regarding the dietary intake of Brazilian children. The development of tools to evaluate the complexities of dietary intake is much needed. Such a tool needs to be accepted and adopted by numerous study groups, to describe dietary status among Brazilian children and devise the most effective, and to evaluate the success of nutrition education programs.