RESUMEN
This study seeks to discuss the significance of school nutrition expressed by students in public schools from the state of Bahia, Brazil. The objective is to understand the symbolic aspects associated with school nutrition. The results of a survey into the significance of nutrition offered by the Brazilian School Nutrition Program (PNAE) expressed by students from six public schools in municipalities in the state of Bahia, Brazil, are presented. A qualitative approach to understand nutrition at school and notions about healthy food by analyzing oral and written narratives of adolescents is used. The reports point to opposing stances between food in the home and food outside the home. What is customary can appear strange depending on the time and place. In this sense, they do not make an association between healthy food and PNAE. The food culture requires students to eat food on two occasions: breakfast and lunch (or dinner). These are aspects that are distinct, however they must be combined in school, because for these social actors, studying and eating are necessities that complement each other.