O PROGRAMA NACIONAL DE ALIMENTAÇÃO ESCOLAR E O PAPEL DO NUTRICIONISTA NA FORMULAÇÃO DE CARDÁPIOS SAUDÁVEIS

Abstract

Through the recognition that food is a fundamental human right and that the school is a space
for promoting health due to its outstanding role in citizenship education, efforts were catalyzed
to maximize Food and Nutritional Security with the creation of the National Food Program School
(PNAE). And in view of the important role of the nutritionist, technical manager, in the search
for strategies that enable experiences capable of including healthy foods in school menus, the
need to know better about the foods offered in public educational institutions was raised. The
objective of this work was to analyze, under the perspective of a nutritionist, the application of
the PNAE in relation to the difficulties in acquiring food from family farming, concomitant with
a qualitative evaluation of the food offered to students in Piauí territories, in analogy to the
legal paradigms of the program. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out with data
obtained from the research entitled “Family farming and PNAE: challenges and achievements
in the marketing of healthy foods in Piauí”. The original data were collected from the actors of
the PNAE, in the period 2018-2019, in municipalities in the Entre Rios Territory and the Coastal
Plain. The study showed several difficulties for the nutritionist's participation in all family farming
purchase actions. In view of what was found, the importance of respecting regional eating habits

is highlighted, considering that regional foods and preparations have potentially good accep-
tability because they are part of food tradition and culture, also fostering the development of

the local economy.