1455 Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors in Children - The Role of Healthy Nutrition

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the commonest cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Our country, as a developing one is facing also with many, “new fashioned” diseases, which are becoming epidemic in developed world, such as: obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypercholesterolemia, stress and unhealthy diet. Objective The aim of this study is To present food patterns in schoolchildren in our region and To stress the role of healthy nutrition in the prevention of CHD. Methods Two hundred schoolchildren, aged from 7–15 years, examined at University Children’s Hospital, are included in this study. They are selected at random and mostly suffer from respiratory infections, throat infections, rheumatic fever, etc. Except history, physical examination, laboratory and anthropometric measures, an questionnaire regarding to food habits was filled by all patients. Results Of 200 examined children, there were 150 (75.0%)with normal weight (< 97 percentile), 36 (18.0%) underweight (< 3 percentile) and 14 (7.0%) overweight ore obese (>97 percentile). There were 10 (5.0%) children with dislypidaemia and 6 (3.0%) with hypertension. The questionnaires analysis revealed many unhealthy habits: 75.0% prefer processed and fast food, 85.0% sweetened fruit drinks and soda. On the other hand, the consumption of healthy food, such as: milk, honey, fruits, whole grains, vegetables, functional foods, fish etc is very low. Conclusion This paper underlines the link between food and health, especially in children; they, as a very vulnerable segment of population are often “victims” of food industry which offer them: high content of salt, sugar, trans fat.