This Monday, March 5th, the Health at School Mobilization Week began, one of the projects that are part of the Health at School Program, of the Ministry of Health. Until Friday, 9, more than 22 thousand public schools in 1,938 Brazilian municipalities receive specialists from the health area that will carry out nutritional assessments on about 5 million students aged between 5 and 19 years old. The project takes place every year and the theme for 2012 is “Prevention of obesity in childhood and adolescence”.
During the Health at School Mobilization Week, program professionals will develop educational practices for the promotion, prevention and assessment of health conditions, such as: weighing and measuring the students; calculate the Body Mass Index (BMI); promote lectures with students and teachers; and provide nutritional guidance to students' families.
Lunch
Snack hours at schools are one of the program's concerns. For the Ministry of Health's Food and Nutrition Coordination, parents should avoid putting food such as biscuits in their children's lunch boxes stuffed foods, industrialized juices, cookies, snacks and soft drinks, as they have little nutritional value and high levels of sugar, sodium and fats. “It's better to choose natural fruit juice or a portion of fruit, cutting the food into pieces to facilitate the child's handling” – advises the coordination.
The Health at School Mobilization Week wants to alert students, parents and principals that the school environment can contribute to the formation of bad habits food, so you must be careful with what to sell in canteens, what to put in the lunch box and what to serve to students, in the case of schools that serve the snack. To reinforce the prevention of obesity in childhood and adolescence, the Ministry of Health is also encouraging the inclusion of nutritional education in the school curriculum.
Data
According to the Family Budget Survey (POF), carried out between 2008/2009 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), one in every three children aged between 5 and 9 years are overweight than recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health. Health. The same survey shows that one in five teenagers aged between 10 and 19 years have been diagnosed with overweight. The Ministry of Health wants to reduce these rates through preventive and constant campaigns, preventing the problem of obesity from following young people into adulthood.
by Adriano Lesme
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/saude-na-escola/ministerio-saude-inicia-mobilizacao-contra-obesidade-escolas.htm