Is Nutrition Education in Schools the Game Changer We Need? – Dailynewsegypt

Fourteen-year-old Amna loved medame, a delicious Egyptian bean stew that she ate for breakfast. But recently, his spoon that once made him happy felt heavy. Amna, like many teenage girls in North Africa, struggled with her weight. The clothes did not fit him easily, and rumors followed him around the school yard.

Amna’s story is not unique. The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, a global network of health scientists, has revealed trends in the prevalence of obesity in North Africa. The region has some of the highest rates of obesity, among adults and youth, on the continent.

A study published last year in the journal “Nutrients” shows that young people in North Africa face a high level of malnutrition in general. Data from studies conducted in Algeria, Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia, which included 37,816 children, showed that 7.2 percent were stunted, and 12.1 percent were underweight.

For Amna, help came from her school. One day, he found a snack with a message that said: “Obesity is a complex disease but it can be cured with a few decisions you can make now.”

“I took the message to my parents and asked for their help,” Amna said. His parents took him to an obesity specialist who helped him plan lifestyle and dietary changes that gradually helped him get healthy.

The snack and message were part of a nutrition education program in schools by researchers at the National Research Institute of Egypt. For five years, the researchers monitored more than 1,700 young students from 60 different schools across Egypt. About half of the study group received a specially prepared snack with nutritional value and an educational message to raise awareness about nutrition.

Compared to the control group, the youth who received school meals scored higher in visual memory and auditory attention tests. Furthermore, maternal education level was a significant predictor of improved speed of information processing, according to published results in World Journal of Pediatrics.

However, nutritional markers were not significantly different between the two groups. Marwa El-Sonbaty, lead author of the study, notes in the paper that the effect of school meals on nutritional indicators takes too long to be measured. ​​”

According to El-Sonbaty, the results support the positive impact that school-based nutrition interventions can have on the 30% of young people in Egypt who suffer from malnutrition.

School-based food projects, including school feeding programs, are linked directly to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 (zero hunger) and indirectly to SDG 1 (no poverty). They are also aligned with the African Regional Nutrition Strategy‘s the goal of reducing all forms of malnutrition, where nutrition-sensitive education is encouraged.

A study measuring the level of nutrition education in the Moroccan secondary school curriculum found that including nutrition education in the science curriculum significantly improved students’ knowledge about nutrition-related diseases, the nutritional quality of food, and their preference for fresh vegetables.

Similar results were found in studies conducted in Algeria and Tunisia. In addition, a recent systematic review opublished studies of school feeding interventions in sub-Saharan Africa have shown that food supplementation and fortification effectively reduce nutrient deficiencies and improve nutritional status. On the other hand, nutrition education improved nutrition knowledge but had little impact on behavior and attitudes.

Experts agree that translating knowledge into behavior requires improved curricula, behavior-oriented and diverse teaching methods, and new approaches that capture the attention of young people.

This article was produced as part of the African Union Media Fellowship, with the support of Nutrition International.