Promoting healthy feeding practices among 0-5 year old children: the contribution of lay community health workers

Abstract

The prevalence of overweight and obesity is increasing both in the world and in Brazil towards an epidemic level. There are pieces of evidence that suggest that the larger the weight gain between 0 to 5 years of age the greater the risk for future obesity. National studies have shown that preschool children have high level of hydro carbonate intake. However interventions on this topic are mainly punctual in time. Investing in capacity building and supervision of Community Health Workers (CHW) of the Family Health Strategy could help promoting an adequate nutrition in the population. An example: in 2012 a group of students in the Primary Health Care course of the first year of the Medical School of the University of Sao Paulo chose to work with healthy toddler nutrition as a project within the course. CHW were trained to answer questions on this theme that the population could have and to identify diet mistakes. The post-intervention assessment showed that the trained CHW had a better performance in comparison to a control group.