“Direct Channel with City Hall” addresses healthy eating in early childhood

Fernanda Nascimento, School Supply and Food Manager, spoke about the nutrition work carried out in school units in Araraquara

Last Sunday, March 31st, Health and Nutrition Day was celebrated, while next Saturday (6th) the National Day of Mobilization for the Promotion of Health and Quality of Life will be celebrated. In Araraquara, the two dates are interconnected, since healthy eating as a quality of life is applied from an early age in the city’s schools. To talk about the topic, the program “Canal Direto com a Prefeitura” invited the School Supply and Food Manager, Fernanda Nascimento.

Fernanda stressed that healthy eating starts with choosing food. “If you are well nourished, health and quality of life will result, which is also linked to mental health. A healthy diet will lead to a healthy body and a healthy mind,” she commented.

She said that the school units maintained by the City Hall offer a fully balanced diet for their students. “Today we follow the legislation of the National School Meal Program, which turns 69 this year and provides all the laws and guidelines for creating the menu. Today, 75% of our menu consists of fresh or minimally processed foods. Consequently, it is a very healthy diet, with real food, and around 25% of which we can include processed and ultra-processed foods very sporadically. We have rice, beans, meat, we work with proteins of high biological value, such as red meat, white meat and fish. Our children have a very diverse range of fruits and vegetables, and we work with family farmers to promote agriculture in the region. All of this brings quality food to school meals,” she explained.

Fernanda also mentioned foods that are prohibited in school units. “We cannot buy foods with low nutritional value, drinks such as soft drinks, juice powders or any other gelatin that has no nutritional value. We cannot purchase stuffed cookies or foods with a high sugar content. Today the law itself prohibits it, not the nutritionist. We follow the legislation that we cannot have these foods. Children even eat outside of school, but within the school environment it is prohibited,” she pointed out.

The School Supply and Food Manager highlights that good nutrition should become a habit. “It’s not the burger on the weekend or the sporadic pizza that causes a problem, but what you do every day. The ideal is to make the appropriate purchase and not have access to a high-calorie treat, avoid having it in quick access, to build the habit. Make a nice purchase at the market or restaurant. It is important to avoid fried foods, prefer grilling, choose vegetables, and thus create healthy habits. And when it comes to having children at home, they copy the family’s eating habits, so it’s very important to have this healthy habit at home. And at school we develop this work, which must be brought both from home to school and from school to home”, she pointed out.

She revealed that the introduction of healthy food has been implemented since the age of six months in the Municipality’s educational units. “The law also prohibits sugar until the age of three, so we are excluding sugar from our children’s diet. And we are fighting a battle because the media has very attractive commercials for not-so-healthy foods, but we don’t give up and we work with our diet to create habits from childhood to be a healthy adult,” she added.

Fernanda contradicts the theory that the healthier the food, the more expensive it is. “We have seen that one problem is the time to prepare the food. Today you buy a head of lettuce, vegetables, meat, it’s cheaper and you don’t need to buy premium fish, salmon or anything like that. You can eat healthy, but today we don’t have much time, which means we make some wrong choices and consequently fall into wrong food consumption,” she concluded.