Nutrition month celebration : It’s significance

August 5, 2019 Educator's Corner

“You are what you eat”, an old adage that until today has a great impact when we talk about nutrition. It reminds us how nutrition affects our daily living. In the 70’s the government issued a Presidential Decree No. 491 otherwise known as “The Nutrition Act of the Philippines” which then a National Nutrition Council (NNC) was created headed by the secretary of the Department of Health.
As a member of the NNC the Department of education made an intervention by crafting an order, the DO 13, S.2017- Policy and Guidelines on Healthy Food and Beverage Choices in Schools and in DEPED Offices. This is to promote and develop healthy eating habits among the youth and Dep-Ed employees by making available healthy, nutritious, and affordable menu choices, and for setting food standards. In addition to this, the Department conducts its month long Nutrition Month celebration every July of the year.
The just concluded Nutrition Month Celebration this year has the theme: “KUMAIN NG WASTO AT MAGING AKTIBO… PUSH NATIN ‘TO”.
The essence of this yearly celebration is for the schools to promote healthy diets which would discourage obesity and malnutrition among pupils not only during the Nutrition month but for the whole school year.
Talking about nutrition, is not only referring to malnutrition but it also includes the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits at home and in school where children spend most of their time.
This means that school and teachers play a major role in influencing elementary students not only in academics but also in nutrition. By the help of teachers, children are being taught to make a good choice on what to eat for them to become healthy individuals so they can perform and behave well in school.
In the research of Amy Ross (2010) on Nutrition and its Effects on Academic Performance, it was concluded that if children are not receiving proper nutrition they are unable to reach their full potential. When children do not have proper diet, it is either they cannot respond intellectually or physically during class which would result to low performance or achievement.
This simply shows that nutrition has direct effect on children’s cognitive development where both the elementary students and teachers will have tough situation inside and out of the four corners of the classroom, the pupil being unresponsive and the teacher being inefficient.
For these reasons, the celebration of Nutrition month is highly encouraged in schools including other government institutions and private sectors to remind how sensitive the body reacts to the food intakes.
Plus, it is fun. During Nutrition Month celebration, different contests that would develop students’ creativity are conducted such as best in food preparation, poster making contest, original composition of jingles and the like, that would emphasize and promote the required nutritious food not only to the students but also to adults considering that nowadays, most parents are career oriented making it impossible to cook and prepare healthy meal while others have hard time feeding their children with fruits and green leafy food.
The celebration likewise raises awareness that well balance diet is highly recommended not only to children and parents but to teachers as well to maximize their ability to work efficiently and effectively during the day. Through nutrition month celebration we are reminded to pause and reflect on the fact that our physical, mental and emotional being is impacted by what we eat. Indeed, celebrating Nutrition Month is very advantageous.
 
April M. Eslay
Lucban Elementary School