Organic food-related educational actions developed by dieticians in Brazilian municipal schools

Abstract

Objective
This study describes educational actions concerning organic foods conducted in Brazilian public schools and investigates how these actions are associated with the weekly workload and duration of employment of the dietician responsible for school meals.

Methods
In 2012 this cross-sectional, census-type study used an electronic questionnaire to collect data from dieticians or others responsible for school meals in all 5,565 Brazilian municipalities. The software Stata 11.0 was used for the statistical analyses.

Results
Although all Brazilian municipalities were contacted, 93.1% (n=5,184) replied. Of these, 94.2% had dieticians in charge of the school meals. Organic food-related educational actions were provided in the schools of 37.9% of the municipalities. The main actions were school gardening (67.1%) and development of educational material (50.7%). Having a dietician responsible for school meals was not associated with the existence of educational actions at school (p=0.372). However, municipalities with dieticians in charge of school meals for at least twelve months were 22.0% and 20.0%, respectively, more likely to provide educational actions at school and
include the subject ‘organic foods’ in the municipal school curriculum (p<0.05 for both). Dieticians’ weekly work hours was directly related to the performance of school gardening-related activities (p=0.016).

Conclusion
The percentage of Brazilian municipalities that provide organic food-related educational actions at school is low. Additionally, the availability of such actions relates to the dietician’s duration of employment and weekly work hours.