List of nutritional status according to the gender of children benefited by the bolsa familia program from 2011 to 2016 in the municipality of Canto do Buriti-PI

Abstract

Introduction: The Bolsa Família Program (PBF), which serves about 14 million families in all Brazilian municipalities, was created in 2003 and transformed into law in 2004 by Decree nº 5.209/2004. The initiative has helped to reduce inequality across the country while being overseen at the federal level by the Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS). The nutritional transition process that the Brazilian population has gone through, in all income brackets, reinforces the need to assess the effects of the BFP on health indicators and on the standard of living of the beneficiary families of the program. Objective: To relate the nutritional status according to sex of children assisted by the Bolsa Família program from 2011 to 2016. Materials and Methods: Field research with a quantitative, exploratory, descriptive approach carried out in the city of Canto do Buriti-PI, with the public target children of both sexes who benefited from the PBF, who entered the program from the year 2011 and who continued until 2016. Data for each child were obtained through BMI for age and BMI percentile. Thus obtaining the classification of nutritional status according to the growth curve table. Results: When analyzing the data of the 41 children evaluated, it was observed that most of them were aged between 7 and 9 years (68%), enrolled in a lower elementary school grade (68%). Just over half of the children (51%) were male and belonged to families with a benefit income of 170 reais (56%). Regarding deviations in the nutritional status of children when they joined the program in 2011, high frequencies of overweight (48%) and obesity (14%) were observed among male children. When comparing the situation in 2016 with the previous one, it was possible to prove a positive evolution at the end of this 5-year period, marked by the reduction in the frequency of overweight to 14% and the disappearance of cases of obesity, a situation still evidenced by the increase in the frequency of eutrophy from 19% to 72% accompanied by a reduction in the frequency of low weight from 19% to 14%. As for female children, the situation found in 2011 consisted of frequencies of overweight of 27%, obesity of 14% and low weight of 19%. In 2016, no cases of obesity were found and the frequency of underweight decreased to 10%, with an increase in the frequencies of normal weight and overweight to, respectively, 57% and 33%. In this way, a favorable evolution was also observed, in which there was a recovery of the nutritional status of the girls who were underweight and the disappearance of obesity cases that progressed to a lower risk condition, that is, overweight. Conclusion: It was observed that both sexes showed an increase in the frequency of eutrophy, characterized by better living conditions, at the conclusion of the study, and that male offspring had the highest rates of overweight and obesity in the year of their birth.