Obesity and hypertension among employees mobilize public universities

Public universities are resuming studies and health programs aimed at their employees, especially those aimed at quality of life. The fight against chronic diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension, has always been in the spotlight, but gained strength during the pandemic with the increase in cases.

At UFRN (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte), half of the approximately 7,000 employees are overweight and obese, according to doctor André Gustavo Pires de Sousa, from the institution’s Employee Health Care Division.

“When obesity came to be seen as a main risk factor for severe forms of Covid, it drew a lot of attention to the problem. Some people seek help to change habits”, says Sousa.

The university had a program to address the issue, which was suspended during the pandemic and is being restructured. The institution is also conducting a survey with obese servers. The objective is to understand and know the profile of administrative technicians and their relationship with health, comfort, safety and efficiency at work.

According to the Vigitel platform (Surveillance of Risk Factors and Protection for Chronic Diseases by Telephone Survey), of the Ministry of Health, 22.4% of adults in the capitals and the Federal District are obese, and 57.2% are overweight. of weight.

The number matches the survey carried out in 2018 with 223 public servants from two public universities in Manaus — Universidade Federal do Amazonas and Universidade Estadual do Amazonas. The survey showed that 58.3% of the public analyzed had some type of obesity.

But what most caught the attention of the researchers was the prevalence of people with diabetes (25%) and hypertension (41.7%). “The study aimed to verify the effectiveness of pressure devices. The data on the prevalence of hypertension was a secondary data, but as it was very high, it caught our attention”, says Noeli Neves Toledo, from Federal do Amazonas and PhD in Health Sciences.

A new research will begin to be developed by the university, with a greater amplitude, involving students and servers. “The idea is to have a diagnosis not only of the environments, but also of the students and servers so that we can think of new proposals, new needs”, says Noeli.

Laura Cordeiro Rodrigues, a doctoral student in Public Health at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), understands that the post-pandemic should cause great reflexes in the notes on the advancement of chronic diseases. She conducted a study at the university on the increase in obesity and overweight among the elderly in Brazil.

With data from 200,000 individuals aged 60 or over, from the 26 capitals and the Federal District, from the Vigitel platform, between 2006 and 2019, Laura pointed to an increase from 53% to 61.4% in the number of people in the group analyzed with overweight, and from 16.1% to 23% in obesity.

“It has been increasing in all the strata that we observed, both men and women, of all levels of education, of all ages, with or without chronic disease, in the most developed and least developed regions of the country. There are already studies of the adult population showing that [a pandemia] had an impact”, says Laura.

For Leandro Rezende, from the Department of Preventive Medicine, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, the major factors that contributed to the increase in the prevalence of obesity in the population are related to the change in the food system, in the availability of high-content foods calories and food composition, which led to an increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods.

“Despite recognizing ultra-processed foods as a major public health problem, a major cause of obesity, our country still grants tax exemptions for sugary drinks. It is contradictory within public policies.”

At Ufes (Federal University of Espírito Santo) the Healthy Life program tries to tackle the problem of obesity within the university community.

“We promote disease prevention and control through physical intervention, nutritional monitoring, lectures and seminars. In addition, we also carry out actions to combat obesity”, explains André Soares Leopoldo, professor at the Center for Physical Education and Sports at Ufes.

The majority of program participants are university employees. They perform physical activities and nutritional monitoring three to five times a week. They are evaluated before the start of activities and after three months.

According to the professor, about 300 people have already passed through the program. “The idea of ​​the project and the proposal is that they acquire healthier lifestyles. From that, they manage to reverse a series of problems related to chronic diseases.”

Professor Gilsirene Scantelbury de Almeida, a professor at the Federal University of Amazonas and a doctor in physiopathology, understands that there are still gaps in public policies to combat chronic diseases.

“There are risk factors that are associated with high blood pressure that are modified, the issue of obesity, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, alcoholism. But there is one that is not modified, which is heredity. The black race usually has a factor association with high pressure. So, there is a need for greater attention in public policies for this group.”