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Background: Overweight during pregnancy has increased in Chile. In the region of La Araucanía it occurs in 67% of pregnancies, which exceeds the national indicators., Aim: To analyze the secular trend during eight years of the nutritional status at the beginning of gestation, the excessive weight gain during pregnancy, and its association with individual factors in pregnant women cared the public health system of two Southern Chilean neighboring cities., Material and Methods: This is an analytical observational study with a cross-sectional and longitudinal trend design. We used an anonymized database with 17,270 reproductive data of urban pregnant women who were cared between 2009 and 2016. Trend analysis was performed to evaluate secular changes (nptrend < 0.05) in nutritional indicators and logistic regression to determine the association with individual characteristics., Results: In the study period, overweight at the beginning of pregnancy increased by 13.1 percentage points. Forty percent of pregnant women with normal initial body mass index, were overweight or obese at the end of pregnancy. The excessive weight gain decreased slightly (z=-3.33, p = 0.001), but unevenly in both cities. Adolescent pregnancy, a low education and low socio-economic level of household together with previous overweight and a family or personal history of chronic diseases are associated with excessive gestational weight gain., Conclusions: The results show social inequality. Female malnutrition by excess is a problem that must be addressed through a robust public policy, centered on primary health care level and with a focus on social determinants. Prenatal care provides a window of opportunity to intervene.

The aims of this study were to identify profiles of women based on their levels of emotional, external and restraint eating, and to determine differences in these eating styles profiles based on nutritional status, sociodemographic characteristics, stress, social support, and satisfaction with the body image. Questionnaires were administered to 884 women aged 20 to 60 living in two Chilean cities. Questionnaires included the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), the Medical Outcomes Study-Social Support Survey, and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Satisfaction with body image was assessed using a body-image-related single question. Nutritional status and sociodemographic characteristics were also assessed. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used to identify profiles based on the three eating styles measured by the DEBQ. LPA allowed to distinguish four eating styles profiles: "women with medium emotional and external eating, high dietary restraint" (Profile 1, 36.64%); "women with low emotional, external and restraint eating" (Profile 2, 25.25%), "women with high emotional, external and restraint eating" (Profile 3, 21.85%); and "women with very low emotional and external eating, low dietary restraint" (Profile 4, 16.26%). Profile 1 had a greater proportion of women moderately satisfied with their body image. Profiles 2 and 4 scored higher in perceived social support and had greater proportions of women satisfied with their body image. Profile 4 had a higher proportion of married or cohabiting women. Profile 3 scored higher in the PSS and had higher proportion of obese and unsatisfied with their body image women. These results suggest that interventions to reduce emotional, external and restraint eating should not only involve the women, but also their family members., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Research has shown that neighborhood disadvantage has an effect on BMI that is independent of individual disadvantage, much more pronounced in women than in men. The mechanisms that explain this gender-specific effect are not yet clear. Since women's body size dissatisfaction is closely linked to gender differences in BMI inequalities, the independent effect of neighborhood disadvantage on female BMI may relate to a local culture of acceptance of female large bodies, that could influence women's parameters for body size dissatisfaction. This study explored how the relation between female BMI, neighborhood income, individual income and education is influenced by body size dissatisfaction in a random sample of 882 women aged 20-60 that reside in two Chilean Municipalities. Data have a two level structure (women nested in 17 neighborhoods); it was collected by direct survey, height and weight were measured with portable instruments. Disadvantaged neighborhoods house mainly poor and low educated women, whereas the wealthier ones were inhabited mostly by affluent women with postsecondary education. The proportion of women without a husband/partner and with more than three children in disadvantaged neighborhoods was higher than better off areas. Multilevel linear regression showed that neighborhood disadvantage had an effect on female BMI that was independent of women's income and education, which was explained by body size dissatisfaction. The mean BMI for body size satisfaction among women in disadvantaged neighborhoods was 2 kg/m 2 higher than in affluent areas, which suggests that a 'culture of plus-size women' would emerge in urban clusters of poverty. The findings signal that neighborhood effects on BMI would relate to the socioeconomic polarization of urban areas, with marked concentrations of poverty and wealth, and might be explained by the psychosocial pathways associated to social disadvantage that act in addition to the effects of material conditions to influence people's health., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Obesity in Chile disproportionately affects women of low socioeconomic status (SES). Research has shown that ideals of body size and differences in perceived social pressure for being slim across socioeconomic strata contribute to the social stratification of body size among women in modern societies. Thinness is most valued by high SES women, following western standards of ideal body size. Aiming to understand the link between ideals of body size and SES, this qualitative study explored how 36 Chilean women construct their bodily ideals according to their social position. A purposive sample of women with different profiles with regard to educational attainment, nutritional status and body size (dis)satisfaction was defined, aiming to cover a diverse spectrum of bodily perceptions. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and approached through a thematic and narrative analysis. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, field, capital and embodiment of the social context, this study explains how ideals of body size and appearance are strongly linked to class-dependent gender roles and social roles. The existing gender and class inequalities in the Chilean social structure have been literally embodied by these women through a 'gendered class habitus'. Compliance with the thin ideal confers women different degrees of power according to their social position in different fields, such as in marriage and on the labour market, which turns thinness into an embodied form of capital. The societal dynamic behind obesity rates cannot be disregarded when approaching possible solutions. Promoting obesity-related lifestyle modification at an individual level might appear an over-simplistic and individualistic approach to a complex social issue. Context-oriented interventions that take cultural constructions of gender and social class into account might yield better results in the long term, while advocating for a more equitable society and social justice as a public health concern., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Between 1988-1922, data of the nutritional status of pregnant women seen in the Santiago Metropolitan Health Service were analyzed. Underweight (22.2%), normal weight (47.2%), overweight (19.7%) and Obese (15.4%). Four thousand five hundred fifty five pregnant women were studied. Underweight 1136, normal weight 1219, overweight 1100 and obese 1100. Underweight was significantly more frequent in the patients less than 20 years old while overweight and obese was significantly more frequent in the patients over 30 years old. Hypertension (2.6%) was the only significant morbidity factor in the obese group. The overweight and obese groups had earlier menarche, while the obese group had shorter periods. The obese group were associated most frequently with higher parity (75.1%), stillbirth (4.6%), spontaneous abortion (19.5%), induced abortion (3.1%) and high obstetric risk (33.2%). In the normogram used, the underweight patients are abnormally represented at the start of pregnancy. The obese group gained less weight proportionally during pregnancy (overweight and obese 42.8%, underweight and normal 34.7%). The obese group presented more frequently with hypertension (20.4%) and diabetes (0.7%), while the obstetric complications occurred more frequently in the underweight (6.3%). The underwent group had more anemia (45.4%) and premature labor (12.3%). Cesarean section was performed more frequently in the obese group (33.1% versus 21.3% of all the other groups combined. The neonatal birthweight was in direct proportion to the maternal weight, measured by various methods. It is worth noting the importance of microelements in the milk ingestion of the pregnant patients and the influence on their weight.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the pregnancy outcome and the growth and development of infants of adolescent and older mothers in a Latin American setting in which young mothers received aggressive prenatal care, and in which breast feeding behavior of all women was strongly encouraged and recorded. Our hypothesis was that the generally higher rates of low birth weight and neonatal complications among infants of Chilean adolescents would be eliminated by an aggressive protocol of prenatal care., Methods: Data on prenatal care, gestation, birth and infant growth and development were extracted retrospectively from the medical records of 200 low socioeconomic status para I patients, all of whom received care by the same hospital team. The sample included 50 women ages 14-16, 50 women 17-19, and 100 women 20-24.