Children’s exposure to pesticides: evaluation of food representatives of children’s diets in the city of Rio de Janeiro

ABSTRACT Adequate nutrition in the first years of life is a fundamental requirement for health and affects all life cycles of the individual. Several scientific studies associate exposure to pesticides with adverse effects to health. A total of 312 pesticides residues were evaluated in common foods from children’s diets, selected from the infancy school feeding program menu in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The selection of food was based on the frequency of consumption according to the weekly menus of the municipal school system. Multiresidue pesticide analysis by Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled to tandem Mass Spectrometry in 145 samples (milk, infant cereal, banana, apple, papaya, orange, beans and rice) identified 426 detections of 53 different pesticides. More than 68% of the samples had multiple pesticide residues. Based on the results, was estimated the exposure of children to residues that were detected, indicating a potential risk to children’s health, which needs to be a priority public health concern. It is necessary to verify the toxicological impacts of the use of pesticides on children’s health, to expand the acquisition of organic foods by the School Feeding National Program, and to strengthen agroecology with incentives and public policies, aiming at the protection and promotion of collective health.摘要 生命最初数年的充足营养是健康的核心前提，且会影响个体的全生命周期。多项科学研究证实，农药暴露与健康损害存在显著关联。本研究聚焦巴西里约热内卢市婴幼儿学校供餐计划菜单中的儿童膳食常见食材，针对312种农药残留开展检测评估；食材筛选依据该市公立学校系统每周菜单中的食物消费频次确定。研究采用超高效液相色谱-串联质谱（Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-tandem Mass Spectrometry, UPLC-MS/MS）对145份样本（涵盖牛乳、婴幼儿谷类辅食、香蕉、苹果、木瓜、橙子、豆类与稻米）进行多残留农药分析，共检出53种不同农药，累计获得426次阳性检出结果。超过68%的样本检出多种农药残留。基于上述检测结果，本研究估算了儿童对检出农药残留的暴露水平，结果显示儿童健康面临潜在风险，该问题应作为公共卫生领域的优先关切事项。有必要进一步验证农药使用对儿童健康的毒理学影响，扩大全国学校供餐计划（School Feeding National Program）对有机食品的采购比例，并通过激励政策与公共政策强化农业生态学（agroecology）发展，以保护和增进公众集体健康。