What Brazil is doing to promote healthy diets and active lifestyles.

OBJECTIVES To present the way the Brazilian government is addressing the prevention of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (NR-NCDs). RESULTS Innovative legislative and regulatory actions, mass communications and capacity building have been combined to create a comprehensive approach for addressing poor dietary and activity patterns in Brazil that are leading to obesity and NR-NCDs. Included are new nutrition-related initiatives in the labelling area, shifts in the types of food purchased for the school food programme, use of mass media to communicate components of the food guidelines, establishment of a smart shopping initiative, and training of teachers and health workers. CONCLUSIONS The entire effort has taken several years to get underway. This paper describes the process and some of the initial changes seen.