Educação alimentar e nutricional : metodologias ativas como ferramentas facilitadoras e estimulantes da aprendizagem

Abstract

Food and Nutrition Education (FNE) is an important strategy for dealing with situations arising from malnutrition. Its actions can be proposed in various fields of practice, including education. Given that well-informed individuals are able to make more conscious food choices, the school becomes a potential place for disseminating a culture of healthier eating habits. As such, this work set out to develop and provide theoretical and methodological foundations for a teaching proposal based on active methodologies (AM) for the meaningful learning of FNE. The dissertation was organized in the form of articles. In the first, through a literature review, the change in dietary patterns caused by contemporary society's food choices was discussed. The reduction in the frequency with which food is prepared at home, the greater acceptance of industrialized products and the greater individualization of food have caused cultural loss and made people consume more caloric and less nutritious food. In another literature review, which led to the second article, it was shown that FNE has undergone many changes until it is considered a tool for protecting and shaping healthy eating habits and that the MAs are important strategies for working on the subject, since they make use of problematizing and active approaches and resources. After the project was approved by the Ethics and Research Committee (ERC) with Human Beings of the State University of Goiás, the field research began. It was carried out in a school affiliated to the State Education network in the city of Anápolis, Goiás, with 20 teachers from the final years of elementary school and 67 students from the 9th grade. The third article, through a systematic analysis of the literature, looked at the approach to FNE in Brazilian schools and also included a case study. The 52 studies analyzed showed that most of the interventions were carried out by health professionals. Most of them reported positive results and took place in the early years of primary school. Games, ludic activities, play, dynamics and gymkhanas were the most commonly used AMs. More than half of the studies came from the Southeast and there were no studies from the state of Goiás. working with EAN and that most of the time they opt only for contextualization. These professionals consider it relevant to approach FNE in the classroom and cite projects, practical lessons, workshops and debates as the most appropriate resources for working on the subject. Finally, the fourth article deals with the development and application of a Didactic Sequence (DS) designed to promote learning about food and nutrition. This took place over seven meetings. In the first, a pre-test questionnaire was administered. In the second, through discussions, text interpretation and the making of an educational banner, the factors that influence food choices and changing dietary patterns were addressed. In the third, a virtual game was used to help people understand the nutrients present in food and their functions. The fourth meeting used experimentation to complement the discussions on nutrients and their functions. The fifth meeting was an investigative lesson on the energy value of food and its relationship with obesity. The sixth meeting used group dynamics, text analysis, discussions and analysis of advertisements as tools to teach the classification of foods, the recommendations for an adequate and healthy diet, and a critical analysis of the influence of the media on food. Finally, a post-test questionnaire was administered at the seventh meeting. The data obtained showed that the use of AM increases student engagement and favors understanding of issues related to FNE. The students were encouraged to debate, to ask questions, and to do and teach within the group itself. All of this, combined with the increase in specific knowledge, was linked to the presence of meaningful learning. This research also showed the importance of FNE as a strategy for disseminating information and for discussing and reflecting on problems that affect society, such as the increase in overweight and chronic non-communicable diseases. And the need to work on the subject in an active, continuous and interdisciplinary way, overcoming the technical vision and with approaches at all levels of basic education.