Dubai: Dubai Municipality has urged parents and schools to change the breakfast culture of children from an energy-dense but poorly-balanced diet to a more diverse and nutritious one.
The call for this came during a three-day Healthy Breakfast Workshop recently conducted by Dubai Municipality’s Food Safety Department at IKEA, Festival City.
More than 150 students from four schools along with 25 parents attended the event which was organised to encourage children and their families to have a healthy and balanced breakfast during the school day, the civic body said in a press release on Monday.
“A healthy breakfast will support the child’s health, contribute to his/her concentration and learning capacity during classes, and will also help maintain constant energy levels in the child during the morning,” said Jehaina Hassan Al Ali, Principal Food Studies and Surveys Officer in the Food Safety Department of Dubai Municipality.
“Breakfast is an important meal of the day and it is necessary that schoolchildren start the day with healthy food. A healthy breakfast can fuel them throughout the day and support them in paying attention and sustaining their energy level during the school time. However, many children skip breakfast and this could affect them adversely,” she said.
“We also see that parents choose sugary cereals, chocolate cereal bars or fortified chocolate drinks for breakfast thinking that these foods are a nutritious choice that helps their child start the day with high energy. Recent studies show that children take more than half of their daily allowance of sugar, that is around 11 gram, from sugary cereals in the morning,” pointed out Al Ali.
“However, what parents don’t pay attention to is that these options are more likely to be loaded with sugar and unhealthy fats, and salt. These ingredients have been linked highly to the risk of developing most common chronic diseases in the UAE such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity,” she said.
“We need to change the breakfast food culture of children from an energy dense but poorly balanced diet to a more diverse and nutritious one. Parents as well as schools need to provide more fruits and vegetables in the children’s breakfast meal, alongside unflavoured dairy options, which not only satiates children but also gives them constant energy throughout the morning to support them with their academic progress,” explained Al Ali.
Dubai Municipality is currently implementing the new school nutrition guidelines for school canteens that emphasise the importance of regulating portion size, food labelling, restricting fatty and sugary food, and encouraging the provision of fruits and vegetables. It is also expanding the community programmes to the parents and teachers who play a vital role in developing healthy eating habits and lifestyle among children.
The workshop saw the participation of students of Arab, Indian, Iranian and Asian nationalities. The event offered live cooking stations and fun activities that encouraged participants to make and eat healthy breakfast. The activities also included activities like cooking competitions, finding the hidden sugar in the food, healthy lunch box, reading nutrition labels, food safety tips and fun games.
The fun games for children were aimed at guiding them about food safety and nutritional values and the workshop for IKEA family members (parents) taught them how to prepare healthy and safe food keeping the nutritional values in. Complimentary healthy breakfast dishes were served to all invitees.
