[Dietary patterns in menopausal women receiving outpatient care in Southern Brazil]

The scope of this paper is to identify dietary patterns and the relationship with menopausal status. It involved a cross-sectional study with 646 women in outpatient care in southern Brazil. Dietary intake was assessed by a frequency questionnaire and five dietary patterns were identified by main component analysis. The menopausal status was classified as premenopausal, perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. Five dietary patterns were identified: fruit and vegetables; Brazilian fare (rice, beans and milk); snacks (cake, burgers, pizza and sweetbread); health diet (fish, fruit juice, bread and vegetable soup), and regional (typical food in the Serra Gaucha, like red meat, pasta and yams). After adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, there was no significant association between menopausal status and dietary patterns. Only age, education and income were associated with dietary patterns. Five dietary patterns that described the food consumption of the population studied were identified, which are similar to those indicated as ideal for the Brazilian population. The findings reveal that the dietary pattern of women in menopause are significantly influenced by age, education and income but are not influenced by the menopausal status per se.