Healthy eat­ing and ac­tive liv­ing should be a way of life, says the Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Lim­it­ed. The or­gan­i­sa­tion ob­served Caribbean Nu­tri­tion Day yes­ter­day, the start of Na­tion­al Nu­tri­tion Aware­ness Week, which is com­mem­o­rat­ed dur­ing the first week of June in T&T. The Caribbean Food and Nu­tri­tion In­sti­tute (CFNI) has de­clared the theme for 2012 as Healthy Eat­ing and Ac­tive Liv­ing: Cre­ate an En­abling School/ Work/ Com­mu­ni­ty En­vi­ron­ment.

In 2005 the CFNI, the spe­cial­ist Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO) for nu­tri­tion in the re­gion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with its 18 mem­ber coun­tries agreed to and im­ple­ment­ed Caribbean Nu­tri­tion Day to be ob­served on June 1 an­nu­al­ly. It was not­ed that nu­tri­tion-re­lat­ed lifestyle dis­eases such as obe­si­ty, di­a­betes and heart dis­eases ranked among the num­ber one cause of death among adults in the re­gion, and were on the in­crease in chil­dren.

The ob­ser­va­tion of the day there­fore seeks to pro­mote and im­prove the nu­tri­tion­al sta­tus of all in­di­vid­u­als in the Caribbean re­gion. Healthy eat­ing sim­ply means we choose our foods wise­ly so that we nour­ish our bod­ies. In do­ing so we dras­ti­cal­ly low­er our risks or chances of de­vel­op­ing dis­eases, es­pe­cial­ly nu­tri­tion-re­lat­ed ones. The six Caribbean food groups can be used to guide our food choic­es to en­sure good health. They are, sta­ples such as oats, whole-wheat bread, cas­sa­va and roti; legumes such as red beans, dhal, lentil peas, peanuts; foods from an­i­mals such as eggs, cheese, milk, fish and chick­en; fruits; veg­eta­bles; fats and oils such as but­ter and veg­etable oils. These foods, if eat­en in the right quan­ti­ties, pro­vide us with all the nu­tri­ents for prop­er growth and de­vel­op­ment.

Car­bo­hy­drates are our main en­er­gy food sup­plies. They al­so pro­vide di­etary fi­bre and help the body to use fats. Pro­tein builds and re­pairs body tis­sue while al­so sup­ply­ing us with some en­er­gy. Fats, a con­cen­trat­ed source of food en­er­gy, are al­so need­ed to car­ry the fat-sol­u­ble vi­t­a­mins A, D, E and K. Vi­t­a­min C en­sures we have healthy teeth and gums while Vi­t­a­min A is need­ed for good night vi­sion. The min­er­al cal­ci­um helps to build strong bones and teeth, while the min­er­al iron helps to trans­port oxy­gen through­out our bod­ies. Wa­ter serves many im­por­tant func­tions in­clud­ing car­ry­ing nu­tri­ents to and wastes away from body cells, aid­ing with di­ges­tion and ab­sorp­tion of food, reg­u­lat­ing body tem­per­a­ture and pre­vent­ing con­sti­pa­tion. We make best use of the nu­tri­ents in our food when our bod­ies are fit. Be­ing phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive is one of the ways to keep our bod­ies fit. There are many ways to be­come more ac­tive, in­clud­ing walk­ing, us­ing stairs in­stead of el­e­va­tors or es­ca­la­tors and ex­er­cis­ing or play­ing out­door games, or tak­ing a brisk walk with fam­i­ly and friends.

The Na­tion­al Schools Di­etary Ser­vices Lim­it­ed is the state-owned en­ter­prise re­spon­si­ble for the School Nu­tri­tion Pro­gramme. On a dai­ly ba­sis the pro­gramme pro­vides ap­prox­i­mate­ly 59,000 break­fast meals and 97,000 lunch­es to stu­dents in over 800 schools lo­cat­ed through­out Trinidad.