(P02-001-25) Food Insecurity, Quality of Diet, Physical Activity and Nutritional Status in Older Adults Who Attended to Public Health Centers in Cuenca, Ecuador

Objectives: Determine the food insecurity, quality of diet, physical activity and nutritional status in older adults who attended to public health centers in Cuenca

Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in 294 older adults who attended to public health centers in Cuenca, Ecuador. The sample was calculated using the software Epidat v3.1. The sampling was non-probabilistic.

Food insecurity, quality of diet and physical activity was determined using validated questionnaires. The World Health Organization criteria for body mass index (BMI) was used to determine nutritional status. The data were processed using SPSS v26. Descriptive statistics and bivariate analysis were used to analyze the data. The participants signed an informed consent. Inclusion criteria was to be older adults without mental and physical disabilities.

Results: The sample included 82 men and 212 women. The media age was 74.1 years old (SD=7.1). Of the study population 50.7% had a couple, 40.1% had less than 6 years of instruction, 66.5% had food insecurity, 86.7% had unhealthy diet, 27.2% were inactive, 59.9% were malnourished and 78.4% of women were malnourished. The nutritional status was not associated with food insecurity, unhealthy diet or physical activity (p˃0.05). The nutritional status was associated with be women (OR=2.159; CI95%: 1.287-3.624).

Conclusions: In this group of older adults only to be women were associated with nutritional status. It is necessary to investigate the social determinants to impact on the nutritional status in older people in Ecuador.

Funding Sources: This research was financed by the University of Cuenca.