Abstract
The aim of the present study was to identify dietary patterns among the elderly, and associate the same with sociodemographic characteristics, health and lifestyle. A cross-sectional study was carried out with a non-probabilistic sample of 295 elderly residents of both genders of the city of São Caetano do Sul, São Paulo, Brazil, who were users of public health units. Dietary patterns were identified considering 44 food items identified through 24-hour dietary recall. Factor analysis by the principal components method was used, adopting loads greater than 0.25 as the cut-off point, followed by Varimax orthogonal rotation. The associations were analyzed by the linear regression method, with variables with p<0.20 in univariate regression selected, and those with p<0.05 maintained in the multivariate model. There was a greater percentage of elderly females (85.1%) and those aged 60-69 years (46.4%). Three dietary patterns were identified: the "traditional" pattern was associated with the male gender (β=0.59, p<0.001) and physically active individuals (β=0.39, p=0.020); the "Pastas, pork and sweets" pattern was associated with the male gender (β=0.38, p=0.025) and retired individuals (β=0.55, p=0.017); and the "Coffee with milk and bread and butter" pattern was associated with an age of 80 years or older (β=0.55, p=0.004) and elderly persons who had difficulty chewing (β=0.38, p=0.013). The dietary patterns identified show that the elderly tend to maintain similar eating habits to the Brazilian population in general, and that diet changes to a similar degree as health and life style conditions.
Keywords:
Aging; Food consumption; Factor Analysis, Statistical
