ORIGINAL ARTICLE Association between dietary patterns and overweight/obesity: a Brazilian national school-based research (ERICA 2013–2014) Mariane de Almeida Alves 1 & Anabelle Retondario 1 & Liliana Paula Bricarello 1 & Ricardo Fernandes 1 & Amanda de Moura Souza 2 & Lucia Andréia Zanette Ramos Zeni 3 & Eramos Benicio Santos de Moraes Trindade 3 & Francisco de Assis Guedes de Vasconcelos 3 Received: 30 November 2018 /Accepted: 20 February 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Aim The aim of this study was to identify dietary patterns and verify their association with overweight/obesity. Subjects and methods This was a cross-sectional study conducted with a probabilistic sample of 71,298 Brazilian adolescents aged between 12 and 17 years, who participated in the Study of Cardiovascular Risk in Adolescents (ERICA). ERICA is a multicenter school-based countrywide cross-sectional study, conducted in 2013–2014. Food consumption was estimated with a single 24-h dietary recall, and factor analysis was conducted to identify dietary patterns. To test the association between dietary patterns and overweight/obesity, we performed logistic regression analyses. Results The prevalence of overweight/obesity was 25.4% (95% CI 24.3–26.6). Three dietary patterns were identified: Btraditional Brazilian^ (beans, rice and meat), Bunhealthy^ (sugar sweetened beverages, processed foods, desserts and cakes, and milk and cheese), and Bcoffee and bread^ (bread, oils and fat, coffee, and processed meat). Adolescents in the highest tertile of the Btraditional Brazilian^ pattern had lower odds of overweight/obesity (OR 0.85; 95% CI 0.74–0.98; p = 0.033) compared with adolescents in the first tertile. BCoffee and bread^ and Bunhealthy^ dietary patterns were not associated with overweight/ obesity. Conclusion Brazilian adolescents with higher scores on the Btraditional Brazilian^ pattern had lower odds of being overweight/ obese. To promote and enhance the consumption of traditional Brazilian foods may help prevent overweight/obesity in this population. Keywords Adolescents . Overweight . Obesity . Factor analysis . Dietary patterns Introduction Overweight and obesity are relevant public health problems and result in damage to the physical and mental health of children and adolescents. In addition, increases in rates of overweight and obesity could further affect children’ s and adolescent’ s health in the next decades because of the devel- opment of chronic non-communicable diseases, especially di- abetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases (World Health Organization 2015). In a systematic review published in 2014, Ng et al. (2014) identified a significant increase in the prevalence of over- weight and obesity among children and adolescents of low and middle-income countries between 1980 and 2013. In Brazil, the 2008–2009 Household Budget Survey (HBS) showed 20.5% of adolescents aged 10–19 years presented overweight/obesity and 4.9% were diagnosed with obesity (Brasil 2010). Data published in 2016 from the Study of Cardiovascular Risk in Adolescents (ERICA) revealed an in- crease in the prevalence of obesity to 8.4% in Brazilian ado- lescents aged between 12 and 17 years old (Bloch et al. 2016). * Mariane de Almeida Alves marianeaalves@hotmail.com 1 Postgraduate Program in Nutrition, Centre of Health Sciences, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Trindade, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina 88040-900, Brazil 2 Institute of Study in Public Health, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Ilha do Fundão, Cidade Universitária, Rio de Janeiro 21941-598, Brazil 3 Department of Nutrition, Centre of Health Sciences, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Trindade, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina 88040-900, Brazil Journal of Public Health: From Theory to Practice https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-019-01051-x