Introduction:

Malnutrition is a global health problem, which includes, in Ecuador, the rural population of the Sierra. This is why it was decided to evaluate the nutritional status of the non-hospitalized adults of an Ecuadorian mountains canton.

Materials and methods:

The study carried out was an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study with a sample of 115 mature patients of the canton Cevallos in Ecuador's Sierra region during the period April-September 2016. To determine the nutritional state, the calculation of the Body Mass Index (BMI) was used. The associate illnesses were determined, starting from the anamnesis to each one of the patients. All the results were evaluated by means of the determination of percentage values; the Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine the relationship between BMI and associated diseases.

Results:

The patients' 82.6% was undernourished; 69.57% presented illnesses associated with the prevalence of arterial hypertension (41.84 °%), diabetes Mellitus (21.43 °%), and ischemic cardiopathy (18.37 °/o). All the patients considered as very satisfactory the intervention strategy. The correlation between malnutrition and associated diseases was practically nil.

Conclusions:

Knowing the state of the populations of the adults belonging to the canton health, Cevallos propitiated the creation of the necessary spaces to guarantee the medical care in the development of the population's activities, as well as to design a program of educational chats to the patient beneficiaries.

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