Association between risk of malnutrition and sedentary behavior in the elderly

• DOI: 10.22533/at.ed.1592592201106

• Palavras-chave: nutritional status, sitting time, elderly, cross-sectional study.

• Keywords: nutritional status, sitting time, elderly, cross-sectional study.

• Abstract:

  Introduction: The nutritional deficit, including the risk of malnutrition and malnutrition, deserve attention, especially when it comes to the elderly population, as well as the sedentary behavior that has been pointed out as frequent among the elderly.
  Objective: Investigate the association between risk of malnutrition and sedentary behavior in community-dwelling elderly people. Methods: Cross-sectional study, carried out with individuals aged ≥ 60 years, living in 24 municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Nutritional status was assessed by the Mini Nutritional Assessment and sedentary behavior according to the questions of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Relative and absolute frequency distributions of the variables studied were calculated. Poisson regression was used to perform univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: A total of 3,100 elderly people were analyzed, of which 862 (27.8%) were classified as at risk of malnutrition and 778 (25.1%) with sedentary behavior. In the crude analysis, there was an association between sedentary behavior and risk of malnutrition, remaining after adjustment for confounding factors [(PR= 1.21, 95%CI 1.04-1.41); (RP=1.18, 95%CI 1.05-1.39); respectively]. Conclusion: It can be concluded that there is an association between risk of malnutrition and sedentary behavior.