KNOWLEDGE OF SCHOLARS FROM PUBLIC INSTITUTION IN FORTALEZA ABOUT HEALTHY EATING

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Obesity is currently a worldwide public health problem with increasing incidence in children and pathological consequences; such organic, such functional. Its genesis suffers remarkable influence on eating habits developed at a young age. Thus, this paper describes the activity held in public school in Fortaleza-CE, whose objectives were: to evaluate knowledge about benefits and harms of food, to promote the perception of eating habits and to educate for obesity prevention. METHOD: Scholars between 7-11 years, spontaneously, responded to questions about what is ‘‘ healthy food ‘‘ and its implication for health. Finally, they built a food pyramid, placing pictures of various foods according to their need and importance for the body. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The experience proved to be highly relevant given the degree of involvement of children, which, at times, were unaware or ignorant of the dangers of foods considered by them as "tasty". For satisfaction of the makers, many scholars proved to be conscious about the importance of eating properly, using even theoretical foundation in their responses, as stated by some children: ‘It is a great source of vitamin‘, ‘it fattens‘, ‘source of calcium to strengthen bones’. Therefore, the project was highly successful, providing knowledge of the perception of many children for the term "healthy eating", imparting knowledge of healthy habits and, finally, highlighting the importance of nutritional education in public schools; which is a practice that, today, needs more family and government intervention, in order to obtain adhesion of these habits in childhood.