Let’s get Sugar Smart, National Nutrition Awareness Week Health Fair
SWRHA’s Nutrition and Dietetics Department hosted their National Nutrition Awareness Week Health Fair - From farm to table: Let food be thy medicine, at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital on June 12th, 2019. It was a nutrition education and information campaign in keeping with the theme “Let’s get sugar smart”. The activities included: food displays, samples, body composition analysis, chair yoga and the judging of the poster competition – Slash the Sugars.
The food displays brought attention to the options available for a plant based diet and promoted additional nutritious foods essential for growth, overall good health and reducing the risk of chronic diseases. Persons were able to sample healthy snacks and beverages such as: fruits and vegetable chow, water infused with pineapple and ginger, green smoothie, spinach biscuits with humus, and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Corn and patchoi seedlings were distributed to encourage persons to grow their own organic kitchen gardens.
It was a keenly contested poster competition as teams demonstrated their knowledge through artistic creativity and verbal expression of how to reduce their daily sugar intake by “slashing the sugars”. The results were:
1st Place – Renal services, SFGH
2nd Place – Quality Improvement Department
3rd Place – Princes Town Health Centre
Throughout the day staff, patients and visitors were invited to participate in the chair yoga sessions facilitated by Dietitian, Ms. Kyrie Homer. The sessions were geared towards helping participants calm their minds, focus on inner strength and stability to influence them to make positive lifestyle choices.
