Determinantes da escolha alimentar no trabalho: Estudo exploratório no setor de produção de refeições

Abstract

Several studies highlight the high proportion of meal production services' workers with overweight, which has been associated with the change in eating habits after the beginning of activity in this sector. The aims of this study were: to evaluate the weight status of employees in the meal production sector; to identify the main determinants of these workers' food choice; and to compare these results with data representative of the Portuguese population. Three-hundred employees of leased food production units of the North area of Portugal were interviewed, including the medical, business and scholar sectors. Due to its reduced number (n = 11), male workers were excluded from analysis. The analysis was therefore performed on data from 289 female workers (34.6% from the medical sector, 31.8% from the business sector, and 33.6% from the scholar sector). The most reported diseases were obesity and constipation. The workers had an average BMI of 26.8 kg/m2 (higher than the female population from the northern region), about 60% being overweighted. The most frequently referred determinants of food choice were: "Trying to make a healthy diet", "Food flavor" and "Food quality and freshness". The pathologies more frequently reported by food workers differ from those reported by the overall Portuguese population, as well as the food choice determinants Being an exploratory study, this work may be used as a basis for future research in order to characterize this population, with the aim of developing strategies to promote healthy eating habits and of improving nutritional status and body composition among meal production services' workers.