Parents urged to prioritise balanced diet on school-age children
Parents have been urged on the importance of giving school-age children beneficial food to improve their physical and mental growth.
According to Mrs Adegoke Bosede, the Nutrition Desk Officer, Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development, gave the advice on Tuesday while featuring on Radio Kwara’s nutrition programme, ‘Adequate Diet and Healthy Living.’
The Nutrition Desk Officer gave an expository discourse on ‘Adequate Nutrition and the Consequences of Malnutrition on School Age Children’, describing adequate diet as the consumption of the right nutrients in the right proportion.
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Mrs Adegoke, while pointing out the effect of not taking enough or taking more than enough nutrients can cause malnutrition, resulting in stunted growth, low weight gain, overweight, poor cognitive development, and low immunity to resist diseases, appealed to parents to be deliberate when preparing meals by taking from all the classes of food, stressing that children need more of these nutrients for their mental and physical growth.
She concluded that long-term malnutrition could lead to low mental ability, which can make a child develop an inferiority complex among his equals and eventually drop out of school.
