Percepção dos pais de uma comunidade em vulnerabilidade social sobre práticas alimentares: além da obesidade e da desnutrição infantil

Abstract

Introduction: Proper dietary practices are constructed by offering a variety of nutritional foods, a proper environment for meals, family life situations, and perception of the child's nutritional status; all of which are influenced by socioeconomic and cultural conditions. The nutritional transition, characterized by poor diet, the ¿pandemic¿ of obesity and lack of micronutrients, associated with poverty has brought great challenges to public health. Objective: To determine feeding practices from the parents' perspective of families of children assessed with obesity and malnutrition in a region of high social vulnerability. Methods: Qualitative study with semi-structured interviews of mothers, responsible for children who were evaluated for obesity and malnutrition, in a daycare center, in the municipality of Guarujá in 2019. The empirical data from the parents of the three obese children and the three malnourished children were investigated via Content Analysis. Results: From the empirical data, three analytical themes emerged: nutritional concepts and practices; food provided by the daycare center; and the child's body from the maternal perception. Eating practices were subject to socioeconomic and cultural factors. There was insufficient food for the families of the malnourished, while in the obese children¿s families there was a supply of obesogens. The lack of a suitable place for meals, considered to be ideal, did not prevent family cohesion; however TV, mobile phones, computers, among others were impeding factors, thereby demonstrating a sociocultural influence. The daycare center was recognized for providing sufficient nutrition and the mothers did not perceive the child's real nutritional status, thus revealing the distance between the subjective and sociocultural view from the biomedical perspective. Conclusions and Final considerations: The eating practices of these children¿s families are associated with access to food within their social and economic context, that is, buy what you can with what you have or offer what you can with what you have been given, also guided by alimentary culture. Socioeconomic and cultural conditions are closely linked to eating practices and the perception of the child's body. Therefore, in order to face malnutrition and obesity in children it is necessary to expand the biological and organic perception and the understanding of social determinants, which go beyond an empty stomach and a full table. While reporting the discourse that adequate eating practices are important, this research was not intended to build parameters, but to draw attention to social policies to understand the family within the socioeconomic and cultural context, associated with their emotions, values and behavior.