Slides: Cancer

Sharing with you all a slide presentation of mine. It was meant to be used in educational talks to those with high risk for cancer and/or colorectal cancer. This is just a part of a lecture series. You may be seeing the rest of the slides as time goes by.

Nutrition education in primary schools

I was surfing when I landed FAO's page on teaching good eating habits to reduce malnutrition and diet-related diseases. The article published in Oct 2007 in Rome stated that FAO is publishing (published)a planning guide for nutrition education in primary schools.

Educating school children in healthy nutrition is one of the most effective strategies for overcoming malnutrition and chronic diet-related diseases but has been neglected far too long, FAO said today.

The UN agency announced the publication of a new comprehensive guide for curriculum development addressing nutrition education in primary school.
...

Good nutrition education can make children aware of how to achieve a nourishing diet with limited means; how to prepare and handle food safely and how to avoid food-related risks.

As future parents, they will know about the benefits of breastfeeding and complementary feeding, and be able to educate their children to follow a diet that is well balanced and of good quality.

The guidelines can be downloaded in parts HERE. Hopefully this will be beneficial to nutrition grads and postgrads who are undertaking research focusing on primary school children.

Malaysian Dietary Guidelines

Yes, there is such thing after all and according to the guidelines:

* you should enjoy a variety of foods.
Different foods provide different combinations of energy (calories) and nutrients (like carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and fibre). Eating a variety of foods is the best way to meet your energy and nutrient requirements in order to grow, develop, move, work, play, think and learn.


* you have to maintain a healthy body weight by balancing food intake with regular physical activity.
Maintaining healthy body weight helps you prevent health problems and gives you a better body image. On the other hand, being too thin or too fat increases the risk of health problems


* you are advised to eat more rice and other cereal products, legumes, fruit and vegetables.
These foods are emphasised because they provide complex carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, fibre and other components that are important for good health.


* you should minimise fat in food preparation and choose foods that are low in fat and cholesterol.
Dietary fat is important to your health because it supplies energy, a variety of fatty acids (particularly those known as essential fatty acids or EFA), as well as fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Dietary fat also makes food more palatable.


* you can only use a small amount of salt and choose foods low in salt.
Sodium is vital for your body to function properly. However, only a very small amount of sodium is needed. Excessive sodium intake is associated with the incidence of high blood pressure.


* you have to reduce sugar intake and choose foods low in sugar.
Sugar is a useful and popular food item. However, other than simple carbohydrate (which provides energy), sugar is devoid of other nutrients. The World Health Organisation recommends that not more than 10% of energy should come from sugar.


* you have to drink plenty of water daily.
Water is essential for your body’s functions including digestion, nutrient absorption and transportation, excretion of waste products, regulation of body temperature and lubrication of
moving parts.


* you (read women) are advised to practise and promote breast-feeding.
Breastmilk provides all the nutrients that your baby needs for growth and development, including brain development. It also protects your baby from infection. Breastfed babies have less diarrhoea and infections, compared with bottle-fed babies. Breastfeeding is also beneficial to mother and promotes bonding with baby.



You may download the English version HERE.

Alcohol and drug rehabilitation

Residential Drug Rehabilitation and Alcohol Rehab centres are not well accepted in this part of the world. I wonder why. In fact, I can't seem to recall if we have a decent drug rehab which specialised in Drug Treatment in Malaysia. Yes, we have Pusat Serenti but that is not what I am talking about. Is it the social stigma surrounding people fighting drug and alcohol addiction? I wonder again.

News of famous Hollywood actors and actresses joining high-class rehabilitation centres flashes our newspapers and online news portals. Paparazzi tag them along like parasites looking for an opportunity to snap a picture or two, proving that they are having issues indeed. If an open and liberal society like the Western treats rehabs with caution, what more conservative country like ours. I think it would take a long time before we could hear some aunties talking about how successful a drug rehab was in treating her son, or how easy it was for her husband to shrug off his obsession with alcohol after checking in into one high class alcohol rehab. We have a long way to go before we can see that happening in our country.

For now, the burden of treating drug abuse and alcoholism in this country fell on the shoulder of health professionals, especially the medical doctors.