Proposals for healthy eating and its implications in the daily routine of schools

Growth in rates of obesity and overweight among children and adolescents, and the implications of the National School Feeding Programme's Food Guide for the Brazilian Population will be discussed at the seminar Healthy Eating Policy: Proposals and Their Implications in the School Routine, on October 29, from 9 am to 5 pm, in the Auditorium of the USP's Faculty of Education (FE). This is the fifth meeting in a series that addresses the integration of service and research through the CREN-UNIFESP-IEA case stduy.

Municipal and state departments of education have been proposing several initiatives for schools to deal with the healthy eating theme, in accordance with the National Curriculum Parameters. Among other actions, these proposals include curriculum projects, research in the community to learn about eating habits, promotion of food and nutrition education, and practices of purchasing, production and distribution of meals to students at school.

According to the organizers of the seminar, these government initiatives need to be known and analyzed by researchers and other professionals devoted to the proposition of public policies for schools. "The literature of this field," they explain, "has shown that it is not enough to propose policies if there is no dialogue with existing practices at school and with the difficulties of everyday school life for its effective implementation." The seminar proposes to establish this dialogue.

Organization is in charge of the IEA's Nutrition and PovertY research group, the Nutritional Education and Recovery Center (CREN) and UNIFESP, with support by the FE-USP.