84 - CORRELATION OF NUTRITIONAL STATE AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LEVEL IN ADULT INDIVIDUALS OF THE VALE DO SINOS REGION, RIO GRANDE DO SUL STATE, BRAZIL INTRODUCTION Given the nutritional transition processes occurring in different places of the world, eating experiences are modified regarding their eating habits patterns, causing an increase of high calorie diets which emphasize on the ingestion of carbohydrates and lipids. In parallel to this alteration on daily life, the lack of physical activity contributes to the occurrence of diseases associated to overweight and leads to antagonistic effects on the human metabolism. The metabolism decrease is conditioned to aging, therefore, the importance of healthy eating must be emphasized, as well as the quest for healthier living habits. Common elements converge to a diet rich in fats, sugar and refined foods with reduced amounts of fibers and complex carbohydrates. Simultaneous alterations in body composition, particularly the exceptional increase of obesity in the country, are associated to the predominance of this diet and to the progressive decrease of physical activity (MONTEIRO, 1995). Recently, observational studies and experiments have evidenced the close relation between the diet's qualitative features and the occurrence of chronic degenerative diseases such as cardiovascular diseases; diabetes mellitus, non-insulin dependent; different types of cancer; and obesity (WHO, 1990). The current technology, the switching of leisure activities - such as the replacement of the practice of sports and walks in the park for hours in front of the computer -, the decrease of occupational physical effort, as they make life easier, they also keep people from their physical activities. The data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE,1996) indicate that 19.2% of the Brazilian adults are poorly active, exercising only once a week, and only 7.9% exercise regularly, three times a week. Active individuals are healthier. Regular exercise helps reducing obesity, as well as offering an improvement in physical fitness and a decrease in mortality and morbidity rates, even for individuals who remain obese (HILL et al., 2000). In face of this, the intention of this paper is to relate nutritional state (macronutrient intake) and deal with the levels of physical activity of selected adult individuals from the Vale dos Sinos Region, Rio Grande do Sul State, through a multidisciplinary study involving the Nutrition, Physical Education and Psychology areas. METHODOLOGY This descriptive study analyzed a sample composed of 981 subjects, from 18 to 80 years old and of both genders, residents of the Vale do Sinos Region, Rio Grande do Sul State, selected through convenience. The subjects were individually interviewed and submitted to the instruments of the study. The gathering of data was carried out in the span of two and a half years, from January 2005 to July 2007. Information about the physical activity habits, frequency and time attributed to the individuals' life style were obtained using the short version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Individuals who performed a physical activity for up to 10 minutes a week were classified as insufficiently active (IA). The ones who performed moderated activity, 3 days a week or more, for 20 minutes, were classified as sufficiently active (SA). Hence, the very active (VA) were the individuals who performed physical activities for 5 days a week or more, with a 30 min session. In order to identify the individuals' eating habits and macronutrients intake (carbohydrate, protein and lipid), the food inquiry method was used, which consists of reporting all food consumed in the span of 24 hours, from the first to the last meal consumed within this interval. According to Majen and Barba (1995), this study allows a more accurate assessment of the daily average intake and constitutes a procedure which does not demand a long period of time for its application. Afterwards, the food intake and the meal preparations informed by the interviewees were converted in home measures and weights. The objective was to identify, in the best possible way, the variety of ingredients in each cited meal. For the analysis of the food intake, through the quantification of the energy values of each meal in macronutrients, the professional version of the dietWin® software was used. In order to evaluate the nutritional state, the Body Mass Index (BMI) was applied. The criteria adopted for age and gender classification values, as well as its respective cutoff points, were those proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1998). For the admeasurement of the classifications of calculated anthropometric variations - body mass and height -, the Welmy scale with 100g precision was used. A stadiometer with 0.1cm precision, of the same brand, was used for height measurement. Three measurements were made between these two, considering the average value obtained. The obtained results were analyzed statistically in the SPSS (15.0) software, through the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (PMCC) and ANOVA tests, in order to detect differences among the studied variables. RESULTS According to the obtained and identified results, presented on Table 1, the nutritional state of the individuals was classified as eutrophic (38.6%), overweight (39.6%) and obese (39.3%), in accordance with WHO standards. Table 1 - Subjects absolute and relative frequency distributions as to their nutritional state and physical activity level (n=960) *21 subjects were underweighted and were not included in the total figure. The nutritional state average among the total of studied individuals revealed that there is a predominance of normality. , LAIALA PITHAN; MATHEUS FERRAREZE; ANDRÉA CRISTINA DA S. BULHÕES; GERALDINE ALVES DOS SANTOS; JOÃO CARLOS JACCOTTET PICCOLI. Centro Universitário Feevale - Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil lalapithan@gmail.com 317 Volume 78 - Special Edition - ARTICLE II - 2008 FIEP BULLETIN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY LEVEL Nutritional State IA % SA % VA % Total Normal 167 38,6 162 37,4 104 24,0 433 Overweight 127 39,6 129 40,2 65 20,2 321 Obese 81 39,3 87 42,2 38 18,4 206 Total 375 378 207 960*