[Interactions between dietary habits and identities: redefining public schools and school meals]

Studies on dietary practices in the scope of the Brazilian National School Feeding Program (PNAE) have identified a paradox: while the PNAE has progressed as a policy based on the human right to adequate diet, it has a paternalistic bias which tends to contribute to stigmatized identities. A study was thus performed to understand the interactions between dietary practices in school meals and identities. The theoretical and methodological approach was ethnographic, focusing on the scenario of a public school in the municipality (county) of Santo Antônio de Jesus, Bahia State, Brazil, in the upper years of elementary school. The ethnographic work was done in seven months, consisting of observation of daily meals at the school, recorded on a field diary, as well as 23 interviews with students and key actors. Analysis of the material consisted of a hermeneutic exercise and categorization of the emerging themes. This article is a cross-section of the study, presenting two categories: the first, "The school is ours", analyzes the redefinition of school in relation to a stigmatized identity; the second, "Food is what unites", presents school meals as a structuring element in students' identities and that of the school itself. The findings also show how the dialogue between the field of education and the field of food and nutrition can help school meals become part of school practices, not as mere nutritional support, but as food that values the public school and its members.