A arte, o corpo e o comer: recomendações eugenistas sobre a alimentação e beleza obtidas no acervo do Centro de Memória da Medicina de Minas Gerais

Abstract

To understand and reflect critically on the historical role of nutrition in Brazilian society and eugenics’ influence, university students and professors conducted research using the Centro de Memória da Medicina da UFMG collection. According to the principles of qualitative investigation, documentary research was made, leading to the selection of works that, analysed critically, exposed concepts from the line of thought of those who contributed to the expansion of eugenics in Brazil. Guided by a dogmatic science, the eugenists described an ideal human being, classifying Brazil’s nutritional status as a cause for the degeneration of their ideas of beauty and robustness. Based on these findings, we observe that man, often deprived of significant pillars for critical reflection, envisions reaching obsessively the man characterised as “perfect”, “robust”, and “beautiful”. The measures (metrom) capable of categorising man (anthropos) should be inclusive and plural.