Teaching a healthy lifestyle form a young age
A team consisting of eight dieticians visited Thusong Primary School and Embelekweni Day Care to promote nutrition at the schools and teach them about eating and living healthily.
The dietician team from Leratong Hospital reached out to other staff as well as two schools during dietician week which is celebrated between 5 to 9 June.
During the above-mentioned period, a team consisting of eight dieticians visited Thusong Primary School and Embelekweni Day Care to promote nutrition at the schools and teach them about eating and living healthily.
They cooked a healthy meal for the children from Thusong by giving them rice, pumpkin and soya mince. At Embelekweni the dieticians distributed 33 fruit packs and reading books. There they also educated the children on fruits and vegetables and all the children were taught about portion control.
Portion control is important because it helps in controlling the amount of macro and micro-nutrients you take per meal and it also assists in achieving a balanced meal.
“Children consume lots of sweets and junk food which may lead to health problems such as obesity later in life. It may also increase the risk of other diseases such as diabetes and hypertension,” explained Fikile Oyekanmi, the senior communications officer for the hospital.
By using flash cards that had nutritional questions, the nursing staff in all the wards were asked five questions per team. Prizes were afforded for the right answers and the team also hosted a dance challenge to promote physical fitness.
All the Leratong Hospital staff from the cleaners, general staff and clinical staff were then invited to join a dance challenge.
Nutrition is crucial for brain development and growth and it is advisable to teach children when they are still young so they adopt a healthy lifestyle at a young age,
