A convergence of “adequate” and “healthy”: an analysis of the notion of adequate and healthy diet in public policies in BrazilLa confluencia entre lo “adecuado” y lo “saludable”: análisis de la noción de lo que se considera alimentación adecuada y saludable en las políticas públicas de Brasil

摘要

Since the turn of this century, quality of diet is no longer described only as “healthy”, but also as “adequate”, in the scope of Brazilian public policies for food and nutrition and for food and nutrition security. These notions have been developed and defended socially and historically and have undergone expansions and redefinitions over time. The study proposed to analyze how the expression “adequate and healthy diet” was established in Brazil. We performed a document analysis, aimed at elucidating the conceptual development of the two terms in the Brazilian context. Institutional documents were analyzed, such as original texts from the fields of food and nutrition security and food and nutrition. A transition was observed in the way of conceiving healthy eating in the field of food and nutrition, previously focused on nutrient composition. We are currently experiencing an expanded understanding of the notion of diet, based on the debate to overcome the focus on foods’ nutritional composition and including an understanding of a fundamental human right, as well as the understanding of sociocultural and affective issues in eating and issues of environmental sustainability in food production based on food production models oriented by agroecological and food sovereignty principles. The article argues that the combination of the two expressions reflects the effort to incorporate the understandings and debates in the fields of food and nutrition security and food and nutrition as regards the polysemous notion of eating.