Consumption of ultra-processed foods and associated factors in six-year-old children

This article aims to estimate the pre-valence and weekly frequency of ultra-processed food consumption in six-year-old children and associated factors in a municipality in southern Brazil. Cross-sectional study with 956 children. Data were collected through interviews with mo-thers in the households. The outcomes were the consumption of candies, chewing gum, lollipops and chocolates; stuffed cookies; artificial juices; and soft drinks using the indice de Alimentacao Escolar (School Feeding Index). The independent variables were gender, type of school, education and maternal occupation, breastfeeding, dura-tion of exclusive breastfeeding and the use of bott-le. Bivariate analysis was performed using the chi-square test and the multivariate analysis using Poisson regression. In the multivariate analysis, the weekly prevalence of stuffed cookies consump-tion was 14% higher in students from public scho-ols and 8% higher in children of mothers with less than eight years of schooling. Artificial juice and soft drink consumption was 7% and 8% higher in public school students respectively and 6% higher in bottle-fed children. Most schoolchildren con-sumed the ultra-processed foods assessed once or twice a week. Consumption was associated with the independent variables assessed.