The objective of this work was to describe the socioeconomic, nutritional and health profile of adolescents recently admitted to a Brazilian public university. The behavioral variables were obtained by interview, the body fat percentage (BF%) by the sum of the four skinfold thicknesses and the nutritional status by body mass index. Most of the students were female (57.3%), lived away from their families (89.8%), drank alcohol (73.5%), skipped a main meal (57.3%) and rejected one or more types of vegetables (79.5%). About 57.0% did not practice any physical activity and 7.0% smoked. About 72.0% and 25.0%, respectively, consumed vegetable and fruit five times or over during the week. The eutrophic subjects predominated, but 58.7% of them presented a high BF%. The results showed that a considerable number of the subjects lived away from their families and had inadequate body composition and feeding behavior, besides other risks to their health, such as alcohol drinking and physical inactivity.
adolescence; feeding behavior; body mass index; body composition; anthropometry
