Introduction

The food guide for the brazilian population has two versions: the complete and the pocket version. Both present the food processing classification. However, to be understandable by the population, their languages must be adequate to their literacy level. In Brazil, a very high percentage of the adult population has schooling up to the fundamental level. Thus, the aim of the study was to evaluate and compare the readability of the food guide for the Brazilian population in its full and pocket version when explaining this food classification.

Method

The evaluated versions of the food guide are available on the official website of the Secretariat of Primary Health Care. Both texts were evaluated on the website separarensilabas.com/index-pt.php, portuguese version, to quantify syllables, words and sentence. Then the texts were evaluated by the FrePort readability index, adapted from Flesch for the Portuguese language.

Results

The complete version of the guide was assessed as being very difficult to read (13.9), with the presence of many technical terms and requiring a high level of education to be understood. The percentage of polysyllable words was 25.3% and the average number of words per sentence is 26.39, which is much higher than that recommended by health literacy. The pocket version, whose proposal is to be more accessible to the population, performed slightly better, being classified as difficult to read (38.4), requiring high school or university education for proper understanding. The number of polysyllable words is 22.9% and the average number of words per sentence is 10.65. However, according to the IBGE (2019), 46.6% of the population aged 25 or over has levels of education up to complete elementary school or equivalent; 27.4% had completed high school or equivalent; and 17.4%, the complete university education.

Conclusion

No version of the food guide for the Brazilian population has readability consistent with the reading level of the population, and may not be effective in its purpose of teaching the food processing classification, as they are difficult to be understood for individuals with low health literacy levels, who is the majority of the brazilian population.