Association between practice of physical activity, educational level and food intake profile of truck drivers

Abstract

The modern society's demand has intensified uninterrupted work among several professional categories. Besides that, the society's organization, with activities that are predominantly mechanized, has contributed to unhealthy life habits, such as lack of physical activity. The study aims to verify the association of occupational, social-demographic, anthropometric and food intake data with insufficient practice of physical activities and if there are any differences in this association between day and night truck drivers. The 470 truck drivers who participated in this study answered social-demographic, physical activity and food frequency questionnaires. Univariate logistic regression analysis was used to verify the association between insufficient physical activity and the other variables. Additionally, multiple logistic regression was tested to obtain models that show the association between sets of variables related to insufficient physical activity. The results indicated that practice of physical activities is associated with high educational level (OR=1.84; CI = 1.22-2.76) and low alcohol consumption (OR = 1.59; CI = 1.04-2.45). High intake of whole grains (OR = 1.63; CI = 1.08-2.46) was associated with regular practice of physical activity. Among the night workers, we found the association between regular practice of physical activity, high consumption of whole grains (OR = 2.02; CI = 1.13-3.60) and low consumption of simple carbohydrates (OR = 1.91; CI = 1.08-3.37).