Alimentação vegetariana na merenda escolar e sua relação com o estado nutricional infantil

Evaluate the reflex of vegetarian nourishment in the nutritional status of children from a private school that adopts such food in the lunch; check the opinion of parents and children about the institution's menu. The nutritional status was obtained through the Body Mass Index and the parents' opinion about the meal through a questionnaire. The nutritional value of the menu was obtained using the DIET PRO 5® software. Students' opinions about school meals were obtained through a hedonic scale. It was observed inadequacy in all macro and micronutrients, on at least one day of the week. Meals were well accepted by the children, 75% of whom had normal weight. 87% of families thought vegetarian lunches were a good idea; 3% had the opposite opinion and 10% were indifferent. Despite the good acceptance of vegetarian meals and the predominance of eutrophy, the professional monitoring is important, avoiding possible nutritional deficiencies.