EDUCAÇÃO ALIMENTAR E NUTRICIONAL PARA ESCOLARES

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To systematize the main actions and interventions of Food and Nutrition Education for schoolchildren and describe the activities found in the national literature. METHODS: Non-systematized literature review on schoolchild feeding education, using the following criteria: articles published in national journals, theses, dissertations, and books on the subject between 2009 and 2022. RESULTS: In Brazil, food is a right provided for as promulgated in the Federal Constitution since 1988, ensuring the right to school feeding to all students in elementary school through a supplementary school feeding program to be offered by the federal, state, and municipal governments, and since February 2010, food was included among the social rights provided for in Article 6 of the Federal Constitution defined by the Organic Law of Food and Nutrition Security. However, there are still challenges facing its realization. CONCLUSION: Nutrition Education actions are important because they have benefits for the health of children and promote early food awareness. However, although it is a mandatory item in the educational curriculum to talk about healthy eating according to the guidelines of the Brazilian National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), this subject is not so deep and addressed in studies since it is difficult to select articles, because besides being mandatory in the educational curricula of schools to teach and practice healthy eating, perhaps not at the level of depth and update desired by the authors. Nutrition Education should be an integral part of the mandatory subjects, especially for students in the early stages of education, also reaching those who live with them and society in general.