Manual of food recommendations and COVID-19

qualitative analysis from the perspective of health education

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated social problems related to control of disease and human rights, including ensuring access to adequate food. Based on this context, this paper seeks to realize a qualitative analysis of the Manual for Food and COVID-19 Recommendations, launched by the Ministry of Health, during the pandemic. Objective: promote reflections about the notion of health education, in order to collaborate with regard to practices that take into account the need to adapt food and nutritional recommendations, based on the realities of the communities. Method: a document analysis was developed. For the tensioning of the material, the discourse analysis was chosen, considering that this practice takes language as something broader than speech or writing acts, based on the analysts subjectivities. Results: there are faults in the Manual. It’s necessary to expand the concept of health education to the scope of public policies, involving the community and empowering that with knowledge that comes from their realities. This objective is achieved through educational projects in which reliable and safe knowledge is shared, so that the population can adapt it to their socioeconomic context. Conclusion: in view of this, it was noticed that the Manual has weaknesses, because it not understanding the reality of many Brazilians and the economic and social consequences caused by the pandemic, which makes a dialogue between the parties unlikely, making the production of products unfeasible.