OBJECTIVE: The objective was to analyze how a group of food handlers from a public hospital perceive their professional activities. METHODS: This qualitative research was carried out in a nutrition and dietetic service of a public hospital school in the city of São Paulo. Its development was based on a corpus obtained by doing the focus group technique with 15 employees, of which 8 worked in the milk dispensary and 7 in the dietetic kitchen. The statements were recorded, transcribed and analyzed according to content and social representations. Later, the analysis was validated together with the participants. Socioeconomic status was determined with a self-assessment form. RESULTS: Labor is perceived as crucial for survival and of great social responsibility, in addition to being exhausting. Furthermore, work represents an instance that allows workers to support and relate to each other, although it does not provide the status they believe they deserve. Labor is simultaneously represented as an instance of suffering and support while it is important for themselves and for the whole social group. Meanwhile, supervisors and managers do not seem to notice their difficulties. CONCLUSION: Consequently, the organization of the work needs changes in order to reduce factors that generate fatigue, unhappiness and discouragement among food handlers. Supervisors need to invest more in the implementation of decentralizing and more participative management strategies, respecting, whenever possible, the opinions and individual differences, as well as in the periodical training of the employees.
Food handling; Qualitative research; Social responsibility