NUTRITIONAL STATUS ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN AS BASIS FOR OBESITY PREVENTION PROGRAMS

Obesity in childhood is a problem that has reached epidemic rates worldwide. Schools have been emphasized as one of the most adequate places for surveying researches on nutritional status of children and adolescents because most part of this population go to school and are influenced by their teachers, which by their turn have a close contact with their students during most part of the schooling year. Many studies have been accomplished in these environments but few of them have reported to inform their results to the students, their relatives or anyone of the school staff. Besides, there's the lack of up to date and permanent data for appraising the nutritional status that may render basis for implementation of public health politics through school education, standing out the implementation of the schools lunch program. Anthropometry is considered an important diagnostic method on population studies although the used criteria may vary. This review was accomplished with the aim of verifying the procedures that are used to acquiring and appraising the nutritional status of school children and driven at the implantation of an effective nutritional surveillance and its importance for the programs of health promoting.