A HORTA ESCOLAR NUM CONTEXTO DE EDUCAÇÃO ALIMENTAR E NUTRICIONAL EM UMA ESCOLA PÚBLICA

Abstract

Introduction: School gardens are part of strategies to improve the dietary and nutritional quality of schoolchildren. Materials and methods: Food and nutrition education activities related to the consumption and cultivation of vegetables were carried out. During the EAN actions, two questionnaires were applied to evaluate the consumption of vegetables: one was a pre-action, the other was subsequent to the activity to verify the knowledge acquired according to the exposed contents. Results: Thirty students (mean age of 7.4 years) participated in the study, 14 (46.6%) were female and 16 (53.3%) were male. The most consumed vegetables were lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and broccoli. Regarding the frequency of consumption, it was verified that 46.6% of the students consume daily some vegetables. There were no associations between the frequency of consumption of vegetables and nutritional status. Conclusions: The children presented a good knowledge about food and nutrition education in the context of the consumption of vegetables, but they also presented low consumption of them. Thus, it is suggested more nutritional strategies in order to encourage and monitor the consumption of vegetables, as the school can help in the optimization of the consumption of this important food group for the development of schoolchildren.