The Nutrition General Department at the Ministry of Health (MOH) has organized yesterday in Riyadh the 1st forum for the nutrition education coordinators, who work at the MOH health facilities, affiliated to health affairs directorates throughout the Kingdom's regions and provinces. The forum targeted 25 fe/male coordinators.
The Supervisor General of Nutrition General Department at the Ministry, Mr. Mishari bin Hamad Al-Dakhil, has pointed out that this forum comes within the framework of the MOH’s keenness to implement the support plans for the provision and application of Nutrition Education Programs (NEPs) for the individual and community, meanwhile, coinciding with applying the international quality criteria in the preventive and therapeutic services provided to sick and healthy people, in such a manner that achieves the desired objectives of public health quality. He went on saying that the nutrition education is the cornerstone to achieving the desired awareness in the society, preventing diseases, and changing the wrong nutritional practices in our lives. Besides, he underscored that the nutrition education is a national duty and a responsibility of us all. Furthermore, he pointed out that this 1st forum comes within the framework of implantation of one of the Fourth Annual Scientific Meeting’s recommendations, entitled: «Health Nutrition Education ... Indicators and Challenges».
For her part, the Head of the Nutrition Education Division at the Nutrition General Department and the Forum Coordinator, Ms. Haifa Bakr Al-Bakr, highlighted that the forum aims at developing capabilities and exchanging experiences, supporting the development and activation of the NEPs, raising the public health nutrition awareness at health facilities, briefing the nutrition education coordinators on their roles in preventing diseases among individuals and the community, by means promoting the basics of proper nutrition and balanced healthy foods and the methods of preparing safe and healthy meals. She went on saying that among these roles of the nutrition education coordinators are to educate the community members about components and elements of the diet and its health benefits, urge them to adopt healthy and balanced diet by eating the daily food rations recommended in the Dietary Guidelines for Saudis, symbolically dubbed: “Healthy Food Palm”, and promoting the proper nutrition lifestyles in sickness and in health. She added that those roles also include contributing to reducing the spread of chronic diseases, especially obesity, diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure diseases, malnutrition diseases, metabolic disorders diseases, anemia, osteoporosis and vitamin D deficiency, that is to be added to enhancing the ways to change the bad eating habits; in an endeavor to improve the health care level.
“The forum covers several topics through workshops, visual presentations, lectures and discussions, including the work tasks, policies and procedures, the role of nutrition education coordinators in the regions, and reviewing the outstanding experiments and the impact of using advanced means of nutrition education on raising awareness among sick and healthy people, in addition to outlining and discussing the forum's proposed recommendations,” said Al Bakr.
It is worth mentioning that the forum's opening ceremony included in its agenda honoring the active regions in the field of nutrition education, namely Makkah, Al-Qassim and Jazan.