Reflexões sobre alimentação saudável para idosos na agenda pública brasileira

Abstract

Objective: Reflections on the meaning and significance of healthy eating for elderly persons in the context of Brazilian public policy. Methods: A document analysis was performed with the aim of analyzing proposed guidelines. Results: A total of three documents were selected: "Dietary guidelines for the Brazilian population: promoting healthy eating", "Ten steps for healthy eating" and "Healthy eating for the elderly: A manual for health professionals". Through dialogue with different authors in the humanities and social sciences field, such as Sfez, Weber, Elias, Dumont, Canguilhem, Douglas, Beck, Giddens and Foucault the following perspectives were identified: individual accountability in food and nutritional care, with a strong ascetic component and emphasis on control over the body; a strong tendency towards the rational and maximum reduction of the risk of illness synonymous with a healthy lifestyle; a strong emphasis on hygiene and food safety; the primacy of the biomedical nature of nutrition and homogeneity and fragility as processes of aging. Conclusions: The idea of healthy eating necessarily implies thinking about diet and health from a wider perspective. The official documents analyzed, however, discussed nutrition and disease. They valued the biomedical approach and reduced the importance of the economic, social and cultural aspects that structure health and sickness in the contemporary world.

“Quando tem como comer, a gente come”: fontes de informações sobre alimentação na gestação e as escolhas alimentares

“…O Guia traz uma compreensão explicita de que o ato de se alimentar é cultural. Sendo assim, podemos afirmar que a mulher não pode ser vista apenas como um corpo que precisa ser nutrido, mas como um ser humano que possui crenças, gostos, que constrói sua prática alimentar de modo social, adequando essa alimentação ao seu conhecimento junto as suas possibilidades de obter esse alimento (MENEZES et al, 2015).…”