Varsity Don Wants Nutritional Education in Schools’ Curriculum

Funmi Ogundare A Professor of Nutrition Education at the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Babcock University, Ilisha Remo, Ogun State, Yetunde Makinde, has called for a collaborative effort between governments, private individuals and communities to modify the curriculum of schools from kindergarten to the tertiary level, to include adequate nutritional education for the cultivation of a healthy lifestyle.

Makinde, who made this known while delivering the third inaugural lecture titled, ‘Food for thought in thoughts for Food: Conceptual Genius of Local Ingredients in Global Diets and Food Habits of African Population’ recently said such modification should also include training appetite and food habits.

“There is nothing that can replace education and public enlightenment in the effort to reduce new African reality of the two extreme pathologies of malnutrition and obesity.”

She expressed concern about the fast food culture driven by aggressive marketing for profit, targeted at children and youths, which she said has started affecting the national health statistics index at an alarming rate.

“Africa in general and Nigeria in particular now witness a rapidly evolving scenario of imported exotic diseases like cancer, renal pathologies, diabetes mellitus, stress, obesity, among others, which are by far no match for our antiquated broken national health infrastructure.”

On the impact of diet on intelligence and school performance, the don compared the school feeding programme of the Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme (OMeals) designed to reverse the low performance of pupils to her institution’s feeding programme where it developed and promoted a five-point agenda that would boost the feeding of students on campus.

“With a crystal clear vision and passion-filed team, we grew vegetables consumed by pioneer university students in our farm unit, hatched all eggs in the poultry unit, baked all bread and confectionary from locally built gas-fired ovens, and from little economies made from all sector,” Makinde said, adding that the comparative analysis of the data (CPGA, 2012 to 2014) collected from the university registry on academic performance and food intake of on-campus and off-campus students, showed that the students on-campus, had higher CPGA than off-campus students.

“Babcock on-campus students had access to adequate meals than those off-campus. Having full stomach will help students to concentrate better on their studies, boost their enrolment and regular attendance to school.” On what inspired the topic, she said, “it was an inspiration because it talks about God. Anything we are doing is bible-based. In science and in teaching, it is there. It is none but a wake-up call to the most disconcerting existential truth that there is more in life than food.

“Local cultures, traditions and personal situations notwithstanding, food is not and should not, and will never be an end in itself, but the means to an end (nourishment for growth, healing and relationships) and for which careful thoughts must be given.”