Discursos sobre educação e saúde no Guia de Atividade Física para População Brasileira via Educação Física escolar: Notas de um casamento (in)feliz

Abstract

This dissertation aims to present the documentary research that had as its investigative focus the analysis of Chapter 6 of the Physical Activity Guide for the Brazilian Population, published in 2021, by the Ministry of Health. This chapter is dedicated to the recommendations for Physical Education classes at school. The Guide is part of an official document prepared by a technical-scientific committee, subdivided into working groups, aiming to increase the levels of physical activity in the Brazilian population. In order to understand the discourses, present in the mentioned chapter, we flew over the Presentation and Chapter 1 of the Guide, as well as articles published by the people responsible for the organization of the Guide and the mentioned chapters. We used the Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis method of interpretation, understanding that a theoretical construct goes beyond the written word. Thus, this method was considered useful to help identify the discourses present in the pages of the materials examined. As a theoretical-conceptual-methodological base, we used the contributions of two scholars of the men's relations: Foucault and Bauman. Through the use of their conceptual tools, it was possible to identify the presence of two major preponderant discourses in the health-education interface that manifest themselves in the analyzed chapter: 1) the constitution of a homo oeconomicus; 2) the privatization of self-care. Regarding the first discourse, we perceive the Guide as an advisory device that, at the same time, brings together guidelines and a series of heterogeneous elements in favor of the institution of a policy for life. Regarding the second discourse, we have the privatization of self-care, identified from the ambivalence between health promotion and disease prevention, in which the responsibility for one’s health is delegated to the individual. Thus, we conclude that the Guide brings the discourses of a knowledge-power destined to regulate the social body. However, this does not mean to demonize its recommendations, but to unveil this veil in order to make it possible to find other uses for the Guide, so that the “marriage” between health and education that happens in its pages can have a “happy ending”.