Fair promotes value of healthy diet

More than 91 percent of young people today eat too much saturated fat and 84 percent are consuming foods high in cholesterol, the two obvious reasons believed to be affecting the continued increase of obesity cases.

Based on reports, there is a continued increase in the percentage of overweight young people between eight to 17 years old since 1963 from a mere four percent to over 12 percent in 1995.

The issue was carefully brought up during the 2001 Health and Fitness Fair held at Gilligan’s Entertainment Center last Saturday where various health organizations participated.

Apart from information booklets, participating agencies also gave on-hand demonstration on cooking healthy and the latest acupuncture technology to encourage the public to start a healthy lifestyle.

According to Chris Belanger, government efforts were stepped up during the past years to educate the community on various health hazards penetrating the Commonwealth today.

He said there has been a steady increase in number of obesity and diabetes cases and the holding of the health and fitness fair is part of the continued effort to remind the public the importance of healthy lifestyle.

Documents and booklets on healthy living were given to guests while members of participating organizations conducted free sugar count check up and demonstrations on latest acupuncture technology.

Based on the documents given away by the PacifiCare, there are only about 32.1 percent high school students who eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day and most of them are male.

In addition to this, the documents observed that the best way to influence a child to start a healthy living is through school since more than 95 percent of children and adolescents are enrolled in school and teachers and food service personnel can attribute their expertise.

The study explained that school-based nutrition education programs are most likely to be effective when they help young people learn skills, give students repeated chances to practice healthy eating and to make nutrition education activities fun.

Part of the recommendations read as follows: the input of members of the school community to develop a coordinated school nutrition policy that promotes healthy eating and supportive school environment; a comprehensive health education curriculum that begins in preschool and continues through secondary school; to provide nutrition education through activities that are fun, participatory, developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant and to provide staff who are involved in nutrition education with adequate preservice and ongoing in-service training that focuses on teaching strategies for promoting healthy behaviors.

More than 15 booths were set up at Gilligan’s such as PacifiCare, Commonwealth Health Centers food and nutrition department, breast and cervical department, dental department and AIDS and HIV clinic to provide guest with documents and on-hand information on several health issues.