Objective:
To characterize the nutritional status of quilombola students and determine the food security status of their households.
Methods:
This is a cross-sectional study with students aged six to nineteen years from quilombola communities in twelve municipalities of Goiás categorized by age, gender, school location (urban/rural), and nutritional status based on the World Health Organization's height-for-age and body mass index for-age charts. The Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale was used for measuring food (in)security in their families. Descriptive and association analyses were conducted using the Chi-square test at a significance level of 5% (p<0.05).
Results:
In a sample of 226 students, overweight (17.2%) was more common than malnutrition (1.3%), especially in students attending urban schools (28.2%) (p<0.05). Most (75.2%) quilombola families experienced food insecurity, especially mild.
Conclusion:
The apparent contradiction of excess weight and food insecurity occurring simultaneously indicates the need of revising the study instruments and the causal network that identify poverty.
African continental ascestry; Food security; Nutritional status; School feeding