[Food consumption in and around the school].

Background: elementary school students usually stay in school 4.5 hours a day in Mexico. The main food consumption is outside school. The objective was to explore behaviors on food consumption beyond the school environment.

Methods: descriptive trial that included 173 children, both sexes, from public elementary school in Mexico City. Eating habits were obtained through questionnaire and anthropometric characteristics from physical measurement.

Results: participants reported to consume soft drinks and canned juices at high frequency and quantity (80 %) and low consumption of animal foods. They also eat industrialized dairy products with high caloric content and low in protein. Moreover, 30 % of children eat 4 or 5 times a day, whereas 10 % eat one or two times a day. These results were associated with the somatometric characteristics of the children, 37.6 % of whom presented as overweight or obese while 12 % were underweight.

Conclusions: it is necessary that health education involves teachers, parents and children in programs for obesity prevention with the objective of increasing healthy behaviors.