Brazil, in recent decades, has undergone profound economic and social transformations. Emphasis on the changes that have taken place in the rural-urban axis. If, before, the economy and way of life were based on the rural, now the reality is different, being more and more a country of an urban and industrial society.
These mutations lead to other issues, such as the nutritional health of its population. If, in the past, Brazil lived with serious problems of malnutrition and malnutrition, now the problem is different. This urban and industrial way of life, in an increasingly fast time, has changed the eating and behavioral habits of Brazilians.
Brazil has adopted serious policies capable of reducing the problem of hunger and malnutrition, but now the challenge is opposite: to reduce obesity problems. Overweight and obesity in the Brazilian population are serious problems that the country has been facing in recent years, and which is also one of the future problems.
However, with the weapons they have, the country is in the process of fighting this issue. Surveys have been carried out by the IBGE and the Ministry of Health. In-depth diagnoses were carried out, which can be verified in the Family Budget Survey (POF), carried out between 2008 and 2009. In this study, it was found that half of the Brazilian population is overweight, with a significant increase in the last 35 years.
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The research also points out that obesity and overweight are growing a lot among children, especially in regions where there is greater income power and concentration of people in urban areas.
These surveys are powerful tools to help create effective public policies to combat the problem of overweight in the country. This is so true that the Ministry of Health, noting the problem among children, created, in 2007, the School Health Program (PSE). In 2012, the theme is precisely obesity in childhood and adolescence.
According to information from the Ministry of Health, the country invested 118 million reais in the campaign, and involved about of 50,000 schools in 2,200 municipalities throughout the Brazilian territory, covering 11 million students.
By Regis Rodrigues
Graduated in Geography
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
ALMEIDA, Regis Rodrigues de. "Obesity in Brazil and contemporary society"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/saude-na-escola/obesidade-no-brasil-sociedade-contemporanea.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
