[Food consumption: in search of a multidisciplinary approach]

Changes in eating habits have been observed in many countries in recent decades revealing the complexity of consumption models and their determining factors. Thus it is that the adoption of a multidisciplinary and comparative approach by which the various aspects of eating habits (economic, social, cultural and nutritional) may be assessed so as to permit the elucidation of the mechanisms responsible for these changes and their consequences in different socio-economic contexts, becomes even more necessary. The contributions of the various areas of knowledge to the study of the nutritional situation are here analysed and the approach to this theme in countries of the North and the South is discussed, as is, specifically, the situation in Brazil. Finally, the analysis of the consumption of food-stuffs on the basis of the notion of "food systems", within a historical perspective, is proposed. The various social agents (producers, distributors, consumers, State), their systems of logic, their strategies and the relationships which they establish among themselves over time are taken into account in such a way as to make possible an understanding of the process by which eating habits are constructed and developed.