National studies have been demonstrating the positive relationship among inequality, poverty and obesity revealing the singularities and complexity of the nutritional transition in Brazil. In this direction, the women constitute a vulnerable group to the dynamics of the obesity in the poverty context. Such fact imposes the theoretical deepening and the accomplishment of researches that make possible a larger approach with the phenomenon in subject. In this perspective, the study analyzed the daily life of poor and obese women, users of basic units of health of the city of Diamantina, Vale do Jequitinhonha, Minas Gerais State. The results revealed the complex relationship between feminine obesity and poverty. The cultural and material aspects of life, as well as the different feeding and body conceptions that demonstrated to be fundamental elements for the analysis of the multiple faces of the obesity among the investigated group. Facing these results it is appropriate to encourage public policies that promote equity widening the access of those groups to the main resources for the prevention and combat of obesity.
Poverty; Obesity; Nutritional status; Food habits