Body mass index, shift work and food consumption: what relationship?

Abstract

\n \n \n A significant percentage of the population is working on shift work and according to several studies this type of work schedule has been associated with an increased risk of developing some pathologies, such as obesity, which are one of the biggest mortality causes in the world. To understand if the shift work has a negative influence on the workers diet and if it affects the Body Mass Index.\n \n \n \n Observational and cross-sectional research was conducted, through an online survey designed for this purpose, including fruit and vegetables consumption, sociodemographic characteristics, shift work schedule, sleep hours and reported values of weight and height. The study was ethical approval and statistical analysis was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics software. A critical significance level of 5% was considered.\n \n \n \n 145 workers were evaluated with an average age of 35.90 ± 10.92 years and an average Body Mass Index of 25.12 ± 4.54 kg/m2, 76.6% were female. 51.7% of the individuals worked on shift work. Body Mass Index of shift workers is higher than Body Mass Index day shift workers (P = 0.001), and they sleep, on average, less hours than day workers. No differences was observed related to fruit and vegetables consumptions. Shift workers reported to have higher difficult to management food intake when compared with day workers (P < 0.001).\n \n \n \n Shift work seems to have a negative influence on the workers sleep and in Body Mass Index. This study is important to develop, in the future, individualized strategies, for these workers\n