This study aims to demonstrate the actions of food and nutritional education and
assessment of the nutritional status of children through an extension project. This is a
descriptive crosssectional study with a nonprobabilistic convenience study sample, conducted
between May 2019 and January 2020. The study population consisted of 138 children aged 2
to 6 years, 11 months and 29 days who were invited to participate in the project and had their
participation authorized by the parents or guardians upon signing the Informed Consent Form.
The sample was composed of 60,14% of children belonging to the female gender and 39,86%
to the male, with a mean age of 4,6±1,2 years. Weight (kg), height (m) and Body Mass Index
(kg/m2
) obtained an overall mean of 17,3±3,8, 1,04±0,09, 15,8±1,8, respectively. Regarding
the anthropometric indexes, the WeightforAge index was adequate in 93,48% of the children
evaluated. In the evaluation of WeightbyHeight, 76,83% showed to be in the eutrophic
category, but with a significant number of children presenting some alteration. The heightby age index signaled adequacy for 95,65% of children. In the Body Mass IndexbyAge it was
observed that 77,54% is adequate, being this the index that presented the most change when
taken into account the total of children. Regarding the activities of food and nutrition education,
in all 22 actions were carried out with different themes, objectives and methodologies, obtaining
an average of six children per activity. It can be concluded that this study corroborates with the
others existing in the literature with regard to the majority of children with weight and height
suitable for age, but with overweight being observed as the most frequent alteration, making
clear the importance of food and nutrition education in children, as well as the university
extension projects inserted in the issues of society, as observed in this work.
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