Objective

To estimate the prevalence of co-occurrence of alcohol abuse and unhealthy eating in Brazilian adults and to verify its relationship with food intake, according to sex.

Methods

Study with data from Vigitel telephone survey, 2016. Alcohol abuse was considered as: ingestion ≥5 doses/men and ≥4 doses/women on a single occasion, at least once in the last month. Unhealthy eating was characterized from an indicator consisting of eight foods. Pearson's chi-square and Wald tests were used, with a 5% significance level, and adjusted odds ratios with logistic regression.

Results

The co-occurrence of risk factors (24.7% vs. 10.0%) was higher in men, in individuals with better education, without a spouse, with health insurance, in women who declared themselves black, and was lower in adults (40-59 years) and the elderly. The co-occurrence was associated with lower odds of consumption of raw and cooked vegetables, fruits, juice, milk, and chicken (≥5 days/week) and with higher odds of consumption of red meat, soda (≥3 days/week), and meats with excess fat.

Conclusion

The results show the harms of the co-occurrence of excessive alcohol use and inadequate diet on the dietary patterns of the adult population.