Madam Gloria Yvonne Kobati, the Upper East Regional Nutrition Supervisor of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) says breakfast is the most important meal of the day and should not be skipped.
She observed that most people were usually in a rush to get to their various workplaces, skipping breakfast.
“If you skip breakfast, the system won’t work because you’ve fasted overnight and need to bring some energy into the body,” she explained.
Ms. Kobati spoke at a regional stakeholder event on the introduction of nutritional interventions for school-age children and adolescents in Bolgatanga.
The program brought together regional, local and district directors from the GHS and the Ghana Education Service (GES), including traditional authorities and the media.
She urged parents to give their children a good breakfast every morning before they went to school, and insisted that breakfast should give them the energy they need to concentrate effectively during the contact hours at school.
Madam Kobati noted that it is important that school children are fed healthy meals and said, “When we talk about healthy meals, we mean the consumption of foods from a variety of sources, legumes among others.”
She said all kinds of foods were called the “four-star diet” and should be in amounts that would please the children.
The nutritionist therefore called for a healthy diet of three meals a day with healthy snacks between meals.
Dr. Emmanuel Kofi Dzotsi, GHS regional director, said malnutrition among school-age children is having devastating effects on their growth and learning potential and called for an improvement in school feeding programs.
He said anemia reduced their academic performance due to impaired cognitive development, fatigue, and short attention lifetimes, while obesity made them prone to cardiovascular disease later in life.
“Optimal eating patterns and habits developed early in life improve academic performance and reduce the risk of immediate diet-related health problems,” said the director.
Dr. Dzotsi said that the GHS, in collaboration with the GES and other partners, is implementing some health and nutrition interventions in schools.
“These interventions have been reviewed and the current plan is to consolidate all interventions for school-age children and adolescents that aim to improve their nutritional status,” he added.
In a speech read on his behalf, Mr. Edward Azure, GES Regional Director, assured the GHS of his support for the introduction of nutritional intervention in schools across the region.
Bonaba Baba Salifu Lemyaarum, the chief chief of the traditional bongo area who represented the upper house of the Upper East, urged parents to see that their children were likely to be well fed.
