Are hospitals in madrid promoting a healthy nutritional environment?

Inmaculada Moreno-Ruiz; Iciar Martín Timón; Juan Jose Marin-Peñalver; Isabel Huguet; Olalla Meizoso-Pita; Cebrián Susana Bacete; Javier Modamio; Beatriz Ugalde-Abiega; Cristina Sevillano-Collantes

doi:10.1530/endoabs.70.EP257

EP257

Prev Next

Section Contents Cite

Endocrine Abstracts (2020) 70 EP257 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.70.EP257

ECE2020 ePoster Presentations Diabetes, Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition (142 abstracts)

Are hospitals in madrid promoting a healthy nutritional environment?

Inmaculada Moreno-Ruiz ¹ , Iciar Martín Timón ¹ , Juan Jose Marin-Peñalver ¹ , Isabel Huguet ¹ , Olalla Meizoso-Pita ¹ , Susana Bacete Cebrián ¹ , Javier Modamio ² , Beatriz Ugalde-Abiega ¹ & Cristina Sevillano-Collantes ¹

Err

Author affiliations

¹Hospital Universitario Infanta Leonor, Madrid, Spain; ²Hospital Universitario Infanta Leonor, Spain

Introduction: NutriScore is a tool designed with the aim of simplifying the information of the nutritional composition obtained from the labelling. It classifies foods into five colors ranging from green (healthier) to red (less healthy). These colors are associated with five letters (A/B/C/D/E).

Objective: To examine the nutritional value of foods sold in vending machines of the public hospitals in Community of Madrid (Spain), by calculating the nutriscore.

Methods: The study was conducted during the months of January and February 2019.

Snacks and beverages sold in vending machines were analyzed. These machines were located in waiting rooms of the emergency departments of every public hospital in the Community of Madrid. The NutriScore of each item was calculated, according to the amount of nutrients in 100 g of food or 100 ml of drink. One obtains the score by punctuating negative elements (caloric value, saturated fat, sugar and sodium) and substracting the positive ones (fruit content, vegetables, nuts, fiber and proteins). The higher this last score, the more unfavourable. According the final result obtained, foods are sorted into one of the five categories.

Results: 258 snacks and 92 beverages available in the vending machines of 27 hospitals were analyzed. Snacks were distributed as follows: A 8%, B 5%, C 28%, D 35% y E 24% and beverages: A 1%, B 15%, C 23%, D 26% y E 35%. Category A for drinks only corresponds to water and it was found in 100% of the hospitals. There were only 2 hospitals, 7.4% of the visited, where no drink in Category E was offered. In 4 of the hospitals visited no snack in Category A was offered and in 13 of them more than a 60% were classified into Categories D and E. However, only in one hospital no product classified as E was sold.

Conclusion: Although hospitals should play a role in promoting a healthy lifestyle, the vending machines of the hospitals offer a very high number of products with low nutritional quality.