Food consumption and health status in University of Porto women employees

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2016

Authors

Marques Lima, JPM (Author) Other; Costa, SA (Author) Other; Brandao, TR (Author) Other; Rocha, Ada (Author) FCNAUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: Proceedings book of the international symposium on occupational safety and hygiene

Pages: 141-143

International Symposium on Occupational Safety and Hygiene

Guimarães, 23 a 24 de Março de 2016

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00M-5HQ

Abstract (EN): Unhealthy food consumption is associated with the emergence of some chronic diseases and deterioration of human health. Considering that women have several tasks and responsibilities at home, they represent a study group that must be even more monitored in terms of occupational health. This work aims to understand the relationship between food consumption, health status, chronic conditions and energy levels, mood, concentration, stress and productivity in female collaborators at the University of Porto. A cross sectional observational study was conducted. Data collection was obtained through the application of a selfadministrated questionnaire. There were assessed 336 women, of 533 employees respondents, either academic or non-academic workers. The majority of women were married, had an university degree, developed non-teaching activity and had a sedentary activity. Compared to men, women reported more frequently to suffer from cardiovascular diseases or other circulatory chronic diseases, such as lung or respiratory, neurologic, neuromuscular or neurodegenerative diseases, gastrointestinal, cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune, osteoarticular or other diseases. Only endocrine diseases were more frequently reported from men than from women. In spite of 80% of women considered to have a healthy diet at the workplace, only 42% eat fresh fruit, 59% eat soup and 54% eat vegetables less than once a day at the workplace, determining that daily recommendation of these food groups will be hardly achieved. So, the promotion of consumption of these food groups at the workplace may contribute to the achievement of recommendations. Healthy food habits at the workplace such as the consumption of soup, fresh fruit, vegetables and water is associated with better health status and higher levels of energy, concentration and mood that contribute to better productivity at the workplace. Consumption of intermediate meals (mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks) also contributes to an improvement of quality of food consumption, enhances women employees' health and their performance at the University of Porto.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 3