Diet guidelines launched
MUSCAT — In its constant efforts to promote healthy eating habits and to prevent lifestyle diseases, the Ministry of Health has launched the National Food Based Dietary Guidelines (NFBDG) for Omanis at Crowne plaza hotel yesterday. The guide, titled The Omani Healthy Plate and related documents, has been adopted from the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) ‘Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health’ in response to the universal challenge in combating public health diseases referred to as lifestyle diseases.
The project aims at enlightening all categories of the public on the benefits and appropriate dietary habits and practices that will help in protecting them from chronic ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, overweight, malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies and so on. The guideline has been prepared by the Department of Nutrition of the Ministry of Health (MoH) in collaboration with WHO to improve the nutritional status of the Omani population in all its categories and to develop the NFBDG for Omanis.
The guideline will be distributed among nutritionists and health educators and professionals in the government and private sectors dealing with dissemination of information about eating for good health. The book features 10 key messages that form the core essence of healthy eating practices. Besides a visual presentation featuring similar information has also been produced to enhance awareness.
The key aspects include salient points that focus on rationale and application of each parameter on individual and population levels. Specific recommendations are also given for particular groups of people including the pregnant and lactating mothers, the elderly, growing-up children and others.
Currently, more than 40 per cent of Omanis are over weight or obese and unless people adopt to healthy lifestyles, the number of such complications will keep on increasing in the Sultanate, commented Dr Ali. The vision of the ministry is to provide optimum health services for all those who need it. The most important health issues that face public health authorities are those related to the epidemiological transition and pose double burden of diseases.
“Although, on one side of the spectrum we continue to fight malnutrition and micronutrients deficiencies in the community, on the other hand, obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are on the rise. However, continued and extensive efforts to management are currently the primary goals of the ministry to address the issue”, stated the official.
Medical interventions showed limited impact on lifestyle diseases. Besides, for young Omanis — life on the fast lane means uninformed food choices dominates the Omani tables accompanied redundant lifestyle and lesser physical activity. But, a healthy lifestyle accompanied with physical activity could reduce the risk of developing lifestyle disease and prolong an active, high quality living condition of the community, he said.
Dr Laila Gad, Unicef Representative, stressed on the organisation’s tasks of ensuring adequate nutrition of children in diverse aspects and the necessity of ensuring that mothers know what a nutritious diet constitutes of for the benefit her health and that of their offspring. She also highlighted on various programmes that Unicef is involved with in areas of birth spacing and awareness raising programmes on micronutrient supplementations and the importance of targeting some health interventions to some of the vulnerable groups such as people living with HIV/Aids. Unicef has been involved with the MoH and WHO in the communication and advocacy plan.
The next stage is to determine the best ways of getting the messages through and to build the capacity on health providers on how to package these messages to ensure that the ultimate target population are aware of the constituents of a healthy diet, said the diplomat. The launch of this guideline is a big achievement for the ministry in which preparations have taken five years of dedications and effort to come up with such a guide, said Dr Jihan Tawila, WHO representative.
“The guideline is an essential part of health promotion of getting the health of Omanis to the highnesses possible level. Good nutrition is one of the basics to fight and help to avoid chronic diseases very well. Such basic guidelines include to change the eating pattern by reducing the consumption of saturated fats (animal fats) to non saturated fats (vegetable fats). It is also advisable to eat foods rich in fibre levels such as fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts and whole grains besides being physically active and to avoid smoking,” she said.
By Maryam Khalfan
© Oman Daily Observer 2009
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