The Postgraduate Program in Nutrition at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (PPGN/UFSC) emerged from a collective aspiration of the Professors of the Undergraduate Course in Nutrition at UFSC, created in 1980 and which remained, for a significant period, as the only option for training Nutritionists in the state.

With the aim of improving the academic training of undergraduates, in 1992 the Special Training Program of Capes (PET/Nutrition) was implemented, which is still in operation, with the main objective of preparing the student body for Postgraduate programs.

The majority of students who graduated from this Training are now working as professors at other Universities and, like other graduates, at the time they had to seek to continue their academic studies in other areas or regions, since there was no Postgraduate Program in Nutrition in the southern region.

From the mid-1990s onwards, as the number of faculty members in the Nutrition Department with doctoral degrees increased, students began to be supervised by the Scientific Initiation Program (PIBIC/CNPq and BIP/UFSC).

In 1997, the Nutrition Department began offering a specialization course in Nutritional Therapy and, in 1998, a course in Quality Management of Meal Production. During this period, several faculty members became involved with other stricto sensu Graduate Programs at UFSC, supervising, co-supervising and teaching courses.

The process of structuring the proposal for the stricto sensu Graduate Program in Nutrition at UFSC was then initiated, with the designation of a committee of faculty members and the collaboration of professors from other universities. The group matured in these discussions and during the process, aware of the responsibility of building a quality Postgraduate Program, which was, at the time, among the few Postgraduate Programs in Nutrition in the country and the only one in the South Region.

As a culmination of this process, the Postgraduate Program in Nutrition at UFSC (PPGN/UFSC) was approved by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES/MEC) on 12/12/2001, through opinion no. 1.334/01 – CES/CNE and recognized by Ordinance no. 177/02 – MEC, of ​​January 25, 2002.

Activities effectively began in March 2002, with the entry of the first class and, from 2004 onwards, with annual entries. Starting in 2010, the annual intake was changed to August and, in February 2011, PPGN/UFSC graduated over one hundred Masters in Nutrition. In March 2012, with the increase to concept 4, PPGN/UFSC began the ninth Doctoral Course in Nutrition in the country and the first in the South Region.