The objective was to carry out a bibliographic study on the profile of foods offered in school cafeterias and existing regulations on school cafeterias in Brazil. Publications in scientific journals, official publications and recent documents of the Brazilian government on the types of foods offered in the school environment and regulations on the sale of food in commercial cafeterias in Brazil from 2001 to February 2016 were reviewed in electronic media. In Brazil, there is no standardization of laws regarding food that may or may not be sold at schools. In many laws, there is no mention of the role of food and nutrition education. There are regions in Brazil where the state has not yet had the initiative to normalize the subject. This reflects the need for a federal regulation to create standardization of legislation and more studies that evaluate the effective implementation of laws for school cafeterias, since the enactment of a law alone is not capable of modifying the existing paradigms in marketing of food from those places.