Modern factory and dietary pattern: the space of work, consumption and health

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to show that the Production Policy is a relevant structure to build a complex net of processes which configure the dietary patterns of a working segment and its health problems associated with diet. Based on the case study technique, the work was developed at a factory in the Petrochemical Complex of Camaçari, focusing on an approach centered on the workers' experience. In this way, it is centered on the perspective of social relations, organized around the general, particular and unique dimensions, so as to elucidate dynamics which, located at different levels, articulate to the processes of production and reproduction of dietary patterns and health problems. To collect the data, the instruments were a semi-structured interview, a self-administered questionnaire, and a card to register the health problems associated with diet. The results, problematized in the light of different explanatory spaces, show the more general processes in the factory environment, the modeling processes of dietary patterns, and also the ways these problems are perceived and faced. The paper ends with a discussion about the conflict experienced by the group in relation to the model of care implemented by the factory, and the strategies to overcome the processes which reproduce the dietary patterns and the health problems associated with them.