The meeting between sustainable rural development and health promotion in Food Guide for the Brazilian Population

Abstract

The Food Guide is a document that addresses the principles and recommendations of an adequate and healthy food for the Brazilian population, with the purpose to support food and nutrition education, and support national policies and food and nutrition programs in the health sector and also in other sectors. The objective of this study is to identify the intersection between health promotion and sustainable rural development in the Food Guide for the Brazilian population. We conducted an analysis of the Guide text from the provided themes established by the concepts of health promotion and sustainable rural development, and subsequently identified emerging themes expressed by the intersection of the concepts, and then discussed in the light of the nutrition and food security, rural development, and nutritional epidemiology bibliography. Seven expected themes and six emerging themes were identified and related to four explanatory dimensions of the six intersection of issues related to the concepts, which were identified from the constitutive elements of items: principles and guidelines of the Food Guide; ten steps to a healthy diet; overcoming obstacles to achieving the ten steps. The Food Guide suggests the social promotion of health in the interaction between the notions of proper nutrition and healthy food and nutritional security, and rural development. Highlight the recommendations and guidelines that dialogue with the production of agroecological basis of food and ensuring food biodiversity in family farming, as well as the prospect of relationship with local food systems.