Nutritional status of adolescents from Moroccan origin living in Madrid

MONTERO LÓPEZ, PILAR; MARRODÁN, MARÍA DOLORES; CARMENATE, MARGARITA; MORA, ANA; RODRÍGUEZ LÓPEZ, SANTIAGO; ANZID, KARIM; CHERKAOUI, MOHAMED

Porto

Congreso; II World Congress of Public Health Nutrition & I Latin-American Congress of Community Nutrition; 2010

Changes in migration associated dietary patterns depend on many socioeconomic and cultural factors. Since dietary patterns greatly varies between different population groups, it is expected that changes occurring in these patterns will depend on several factors, ranging from food availability - both by the presence in the market as by their cost - to purely cultural or religious issues, as well as working hours, distance between educative and work places to home, and/or gender factors. Health impact associated to these changes is important; the observed trend is an increase in overweight and obesity that exceeded the values in local (origin) populations. Particularly in the Moroccan immigrant population living in Madrid, changes in diet will depend mainly on cultural factors rather than food availability, which barely vary respect to the consumed in Morocco. In this paper we analyze the nutritional status of a sample of Moroccan adolescent living in Madrid. Sample was obtained in schools of Madrid Province. The studied variables include indices and anthropometric measures (weight, height, subcutaneous fat folds, Body Mass Index (BMI), fat mass %), energy and nutrient intake (kcal/day, Carbohydrates (g) Lipids (g) Proteins (g), Fe (mg) Cholesterol (mg), MUFA (g), PUFA (g) SFA (g) Fiber (g)) and diet quality (energy profile, MUFA+PUFA/SFA relationship). BMI values in both boys and girls correspond to the 50th percentile curves values of the new WHO references.The energy profile of the diet is similar to that observed in the Spanish population; approximately 49% of the total energy comes from carbohydrates, 34% from lipids and 13.5% from protein. Dietary cholesterol is high (326 mg), however the average consumption of fiber is in line with the recommendations (30 g). These results differ from those obtained in other studies with Moroccan adolescents living in Morocco, where lower values of BMI and an energy profile that better fit the recommendations are observed.