Junk food consumption in schoolchildren

Abstract

Unhealthy eating represents a serious health problem worldwide. Diets high in fat and low in products and whole grains are common. Objective: to characterize the consumption of junk food in the school population of Honduras, in June 2018. Material and Methods: Non-experimental, descriptive, cross-sectional study. The universe was made up of all schoolage children from 5 to 15 years old, who were in grades one to six, in public schools in Honduras. Through a stratified sampling technique; Primary education centers were obtained using a simple random technique, and the population to be studied using a probabilistic random technique. A sample of 7020 schoolchildren was obtained. 10 schoolchildren were taken for each of the 6 grades. Results: The most consumed junk food was churro with 92.9% of schoolchildren, followed by carbonated drinks with 80.4% schoolchildren and fried chicken with 76.6% of schoolchildren. Discussion: For Palenzuela et al. more than half of the adolescents consume soft drinks daily and the ingestion of sweets is done more than once a day in 18% of the adolescents studied. This is disagrees with the data from this study. Conclusions: It was found that most of the respondents were first grade, female, with an income of less than 6 dollars a day. There are a significant number of schoolchildren who consume some form of junk food frequently. The highest consumption was churros, carbonated drinks and fried chicken and, both in portions per day and times per week; consuming junk food more frequently at home