OBJECTIVES: to consolidate secondary data and provide some as yet unpublished information on changes in the nutritional status of Brazilian children, and, principally, adults, from an anthropometrical point of view as evaluated in the course of the most recent surveys, laying emphasis on geographical and socio-economic features. METHODS: tables and graphs were used to consolidate data published by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and from other sources, along with estimates for results not included in these original documents. Preliminary data from two as yet unpublished studies were also included. RESULTS: it was shown that, alongside the decline in malnutrition in children there are signs of an epidemic increase in obesity and overweight in adults. This is characteristic of the change in epidemiological profile associated with the nutritional transition. There is an apparent paradox that the highest frequencies for normal anthropometric measurements in adults were found in the poorer North and Northeast regions of Brazil. These results were even found in localities with very low indices for human development in the Northeast region. The best anthropometric situation for adult populations in Brazil was found in families with a low income (less than ¼ of one minimum wage per household per capita, with a prevalence rate twice as high among adult males in comparison with the higher household income group). CONCLUSIONS: the results for nutritional anthropo-metry among adults, showing more normal measurements among the low-income population, reflect a peculiar phase in epidemiological terms in the process of the nutritional transition in the country, which constitutes a paradox arising in these specific circumstances, which is probably temporary.
Anthropometry; Nutritional transition; Adult
