Belize’s First Health and Nutrition Expo

Healthy habits, healthy schools, healthy Belize”, that is the theme of the first Health and Nutrition expo held today the Belize Civic Center. The expo was held in order to encourage healthier habits and bring awareness to health concerns threatening the young population. Several primary and secondary schools attended the event earlier today, where they got to sample an array of nutritional foods, as well as learn about how to make small changes in their daily lives. News Five’s Britney Gordon stopped by to learn all about it. Here’s the story.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

Today, dozens of students got the opportunity to learn about fostering healthy habits at the first ever Health and Nutrition Expo at the Belize Civic Center. The event was hosted by the Ministry of Health and Wellness, in partnership with several NGOs and government agencies, including the Ministry of Education. At the event, students visited booths where representatives educated them on topics such as mental health, nutritional dietary options, skin care, and non-communicable diseases.

 

Robyn Daly-Faber, Technical Advisor for Nutrition, Ministry of Health and Wellness

“So we wanted to be able to share with those that are in the program and others as well, the impact, the importance of health and nutrition. We’re giving out posters, informational, flyers, contents. We’re also being able to teach some of the students some pointers about health and nutrition today. We have twenty-two booths. We also invited some of the beverage companies that are selling juices that are natural for them to also promote their healthy products. So that gives us about twenty-two and we expect about five hundred students varying from preschool, primary and secondary school to join us today.”

 

Minister of Health and Wellness, Kevin Bernard spoke on the importance of such an event.

 

Kevin Bernard, Minister of Health & Wellness

“Today as you know the Ministry of Health and Wellness have launched the National Nutrition Policy last year. And as part of the commitment and to ensure that we move on with the policy, we have been able to team up with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, in showing our commitment as a government and as ministries, that we are committed to ensuring that we can Push into Belize, especially in our schools at a very young age, the issue of being healthy habits so we can create healthy schools and the end result that we have a healthier Belize.  As we have been saying for a long time, we have to address the issues of non communicable diseases that are affecting our society. In my message, I spoke about it briefly, diabetes, cancer and all these things that are prevailing in our country, we need to reduce that and the only way we can do if our people start to eat up healthy, start to build those healthy habits, and it has to start not only from the schools, but from home, as Minister Fonseca rightly mentioned. It starts at home, but we must ensure that it is incorporated in the school system and that’s one of the reasons why the Ministry of Education has also adapted the healthy eating habits within the school system. For us, it’s important that we bring together stakeholders from both the non-governmental organization, the government partners, international partners, and the private sector to come together to ensure that we continue to promote this initiative.”

 

According to Education Minster Francis Fonseca, this event is part of a larger initiative to educate students about personal health and encourage change within the community. The ministry has been working on several other projects that are set to be implemented soon.

 

 

 

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“I think we all know, in our own individual lives, we know how important health is, how important nutrition is to leading a healthy life. So I think for us at the Ministry of Education, what’s important is that. We have, in a sense, a captive audience. We have, as I said in my remarks. We have one hundred thousand students in our education system from preschool to university. And so we believe that represents a unique opportunity to really instill in our students these healthy habits which will ultimately lead to them leading healthy lives and Belize becoming a healthier country. So it’s, absolutely important at the Ministry of Education. We have focused on this in our new curriculum that we launched, the competency based curriculum health and nutrition and sports play an important part of that in that curriculum. We’ve also worked with the Ministry of Health to develop the National Nutrition Policy. And of course we’ve launched the National Healthy Start Feeding Program across the country, which is all about making sure that we’re providing nutritious meals to our students in their classrooms across the country. We have to start gradually, but I’m happy to report that we’re already in thirty-five primary schools. We’re already in nine high schools. Later this year, we’ll expand to twelve other high schools and I think six other primary schools. So it’s an exciting initiative. And the whole objective is about ensuring that we’re producing healthier citizens for Belize.”

 

The most ambitious undertaking by the ministries of Education and Health includes a joint endeavor to ban the sale of sugary drinks on school compounds. Minister Fonseca explained how the process is going.

 

 

 

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“It’s a challenging issue because you know how addicted our people are to these sugary drinks and our students and young people in particular. But it’s something we feel very strongly about, so we’ve worked along with the Ministry of Health to pass that legislation about the banning of sugary drinks in our schools. We have to take a phased approach, obviously, a responsible approach so it’s being done in phases but I’m very glad with the initial results as we roll out that program. Already we’re seeing that, there’s so many good alternatives, coconut water, natural water, of course. So it’s, again, it’s a challenge. It’s an issue of changing habits and ensuring that our students understand and appreciate that it’s much better for you to drink some water or drink some coconut water than to drink a soda or a soft drink.”

 

Reporter

“When it comes to what the schools are allowed to sell, is it going to be made mandatory now?”

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“Yes, that’s the whole idea. That, as I said, the whole policy is about banning these sugary drinks in our schools, on our school compounds. But it has to be done in a phased approach. So it’s not saying, okay, effective today. No, it’s being done in a phased, rolled out approach. And so far it’s been very successful. And we hope, as I said my, our goal really is that over a period of say a year and a half or two years that eventually we can have a complete ban of these sugary drinks on our school campuses.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.