Demographic Profile of Children Related to Nutritional Health

The fight by institutions to maintain good eating habits by changing the school menu campaigning and guiding parents has great enemies in the fast-food chains manufacturers of snacks and sweets. This is called junk food i.e. food that tastes good but isn''t nutritious or healthy. The number of overweight children is increasing in Brazil and there is no doubt that this will become a major public health problem. Guidance has to come from home as parents often don''t realise that bad daily eating habits are passed on to their children making it increasingly difficult to change them. Ideally parents should create proper meals with lots of fruit salads vegetables and little fat as well as avoiding keeping biscuits crackers snacks fatty cheeses chocolates and anything that is high in fat and calories at home (PARISI 2004).