Objective

to evaluate association between work and health risk behaviors among rural schoolchildren.

Methods

this was a cross-sectional study with 5th to 8th grade elementary and middle school students attending municipal schools in Barão do Triunfo, RS, Brazil in 2010; a self-administered questionnaire was used; their work profile was characterized as ‘current workers’, ‘former workers’, and ‘non-workers’; health risk behaviors examined were smoking, alcohol consumption, overweight, and physical inactivity (≤300 minutes per week).

Results

of the 339 participants under 16 years old (89.9%), 82.3% were current workers; their predominant work was domestic services (39.8%), and farming (29.9%); 24.8% of students were overweight, 51.2% were inactive during leisure, 6.6% smoked, and 27.0% had consumed alcohol in the last 30 days; alcohol consumption was higher among workers than non-workers (p=0.02).

Conclusion

eight out of ten schoolchildren worked, most of them as child labor; the most frequent health risk behavior was alcohol consumption.

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