The Ministry of Education and the Action for Children and the Aged (ACTA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding today to promote healthy living amongst children in schools around the country.
The Ministry of Education permanent secretary Dr Brij Lal said that this new partnership will provide the basis for information sharing and map out ways of improving healthy lifestyles and encouraging healthy balanced meals for children.
“This MOU signing will be effective from today, considering the survey carried out by the team, we hope to advise schools around the country on the measures that should be taken to curb this unhealthy lifestyle,” Dr Lal said.
ACTA Trust Fiji is non-governmental organisation which was established last year and hopes to promote healthy living amongst children and the elderly.
The ACTA medical advisor Dr Bijend Prasad Ram highlighted that a child health survey was carried out in the central western and northern division which showed that some children had acess to ony a few meals creating an imbalanced meal diet as a result of either missing out on breakfast, lunch or dinner.
“These imbalances in consumption of food lead to health related problems of micro related deficiency like anaemia. Also, the issue of high consumption of junk food amongst students was featured in this survey", Dr Prasad Ram said.
Dr Bijend adds the organisation is working with the Ministry of Health to better address this issue and map out solutions that would address healthy living in schools across the country.
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