SCN News No 34 - UNSCN

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Working Together in Countries
Working together in Brazil
The National Food and Nutrition Policy (Política Nacional de Alimentação e Nutriçã, PNAN) is a part of the National
Health Policy and also fits into the context of Food and Nutritional Security. One main directive is the Food and Nutrition
Surveillance System (Sistema de Vigilância Alimentar e Nutricional, SISVAN), which is part of the primary health
information system. Its objectives are early detection of risk situations and prescription of actions in order to prevent
health problems. Another PNAN directive is the promotion of healthy dietary practices and lifestyles which addresses the
nutrition transition and the double burden of malnutrition. It affirms the importance of adopting measures to implement
national food guides that stimulate traditional regional foods and regulate food marketing (mainly to children).
SISVAN and the Bolsa Família Program: The Bolsa Família Program is the Federal Government’s conditional cash
transfer program for poor and extremely poor families. The Ministry of Health is responsible for overseeing the health
conditionalities among families with children (growth and development monitoring through SISVAN and immunizations)
and pregnant women. The second semester of 2006 indicated an increase of municipalities monitoring families:
4,764 (85.6%) Brazilian municipalities monitored 3,450,252 (36%) beneficiary families. Almost all monitored families
(99.9%) and children (99.4%) fulfilled their health conditionalities. SISVAN registered the nutritional status of 3.7 million
individuals (1,501,537 children, 1,446,348 adult women, 766,562 adolescents and 9,769 pregnant women). The national
overall results show that 2.1% of the beneficiary children were very low weight-for-age and 6.7% were low weight-forage.
SISVAN also revealed a high prevalence of overweight (45.7%) among adult beneficiary women.
The impact of the Bolsa Família Program: The Ministry of Health has conducted impact evaluation of cash transfer
programs by comparing beneficiary and non-beneficiary families in Brazil’s Northeast region. Among the most important
results of the first rounds (2002-2003, referent to the Bolsa-Alimentacao Program), positive impacts were observed on
food expenditures, on the quality of diets and on weight-for-age indicators. In 2005, a new round of this series of studies
was carried out, in order to evaluate the impact of the health component of the Bolsa Familia Program (to which Bolsa-
Alimentacao was incorporated). Once again it was observed that beneficiary families spend more of their money on food
and present more diversified diets than non-beneficiary families. Regarding nutritional impact, children up to 7 years old
who belonged to the program for a longer time tended to present greater height-for-age recovery than other children. On
the other hand, the large increase in overweight and obesity prevalence among adult women of both beneficiary and
non-beneficiary families is alarming and witnesses about the double burden of malnutrition in low income households. It
was also noted that cash transfers assure some protection against food insecurity to beneficiary families. This series of
studies confirm the relevance of these interventions and reinforce the importance of health and nutritional education and
of food and nutritional surveillance of the population.
Public Health and Regulation of Food Marketing in Brazil: In response to the double burden of malnutrition, the
Ministry of Health’s National Health Surveillance Agency has published a Public Consultation about the proposal of
Technical Regulation on food offer, marketing, publicity, information and other practices, directed to the spreading or
promotion of foods with high contents of sugar, saturated fat and sodium and nutrient-poor beverages in all media. The
dialogue with food companies and media and marketing agencies should be intensified in order to gradually reduce the
demand and eliminate the promotion of food items and beverages that contribute to diets conducive to poor health in
children and adolescents. The Ministry of Health
believes that governmental interventions, which
help people to control habits that risk their own
health, cannot be understood as restrictions to
individual freedom of choice.
Contact: CGPAN
General-Coordination of the Food and Nutrition Policy
SEPN 511 Bloco C Biitar IV- 4º Andar.
Brasilia DF. Brasil. 70750-543.
Phone: 55 61 3448-8040.
E-mail: cgpan@saude.gov.br
www.saude.gov.br/alimentacao
What is happening where you are?
Do you want to report about the nutrition
programmes and projects in your country?
Please send a summary of
maximum 400 words to scn@who.int
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