This paper evaluated the nutritional status and the food consumption of 153 adolescents (males and females), with a median age of 11.9 years (±1.26), and with low socioeconomic level, registered at a Center of Youth from the city of São Paulo. To evaluate the nutritional status, cutoff points based on percentiles of the distribution of Body Mass Index for age and sex were adopted. A 24-hour recall, with an album of photographic registers, was applied to estimate the food consumption. The Nutritional Quality Index for calcium and iron was calculated. The average values of energy, protein, carbohydrate, lipids, calcium, iron and cholesterol were 1953kcal, 69g, 264g, 69g, 517mg, 10mg and 329mg, respectively. According to the assessment of the nutritional status, 78.4% of the adolescents were within the range of normality, 11.8% presented overweight risk, 7.8% were overweight and 2.0% had low weight. Insufficient calcium consumption was detected, especially among girls (98.4%), who had also presented unsatisfactory quality of diet in iron (73.8%).
adolescents; nutritional status; food consumption; calcium
