Conhecimento e atuação de nutricionistas da alimentação escolar sobre dietas sustentáveis

Abstract

Introduction: Sustainability issues in the National School Feeding Program (PNAE, in its acronym in Portuguese) have been increasingly pressing, and nutrition professionals are key in this process. Objectives: To verify knowledge, actions and importance given to the sustainable diets dimensions by nutritionists working in school feeding programs in the southwestern and western State of Paraná, Brazil. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study based on an online questionnaire on knowledge, importance given to, and actions regarding sustainability, which was answered by 32 nutritionists. The PSPP software, for descriptive analysis, and the Mann Whitney test were used. Results: It was found that most respondents (62.5%) did not have academic training on the subject and considered they did not have sufficient knowledge about sustainable diets. Although all of them consider sustainability aspects to be very or moderately important, the environmental dimension had the lowest percentage as “very important” (75%). Regarding actions, it was observed that those related to compliance with legislation and economy obtained greater adherence from nutritionists. A significant association (p<0.05) was found between the importance given to the economic dimension and the number of sustainability actions carried out by nutritionists. The data show that professionals who carry out more sustainable actions tend to be those more concerned with economic aspects than with environmental aspects. Conclusion: There is a need for training and awareness about sustainable diets for these professionals so that they can understand more deeply what the topic encompasses and have more clarity about the actions they must take to achieve sustainability, as well as more financial resources for it.

Keywords

• dieta. alimentação escolar. nutricionista. meio ambiente.