Perception of the body image and nutritional status of students of a university center in Fortaleza-CE

Objective: To analyze the perception of body image and the nutritional status of university students. Materials and Methods: A crosssectional study was carried out with 100 university students from the courses of nutrition and fashion design. An anthropometric evaluation was performed using the IMC for nutritional diagnosis, in addition to the application of a questionnaire containing a silhouettes scale, which evaluates the satisfaction and distortion of the body image that the individual has of himself. Results: Most students from both courses presented nutritional status of eutrophic, being 74% academic nutrition and 66% academic fashion design. Regarding the degree of selfimage distortion, nutrition scholars 48% overestimated their image, 26% underestimated, and only 12% showed no distortion. In the fashion design course, 62% overestimated their image, 30% underestimated and 20% showed no distortion. As for the satisfaction with the image itself, most students of fashion design showed greater dissatisfaction (58%), demonstrating the desire for a smaller silhouette. Nutrition students (32%) showed a desire to have a larger silhouette. Conclusion: Students of the courses studied presented dissatisfaction and distortion of the image, although most of them are in the range of eutrophic IMC, thus showing that the perception of the image overlaps with the nutritional status, which makes important the intervention of health professionals for the recognition, intervention and planning in the prevention of possible problems associated with the distortion of body image in the studied public.