e-HISGOT Highlights Nutrition and Nutrition Resiliency

The National Nutrition Council Region VII recently underscored nutrition and nutrition resiliency in one of its episodes of e-HISGOT or Educational Health and Nutrition Information-Sharing Geared Towards Development.

Nutrition is the science and process where the body sustains itself by processing food which turns into the source of energy and other bodily processes that are important for daily living thus making nutrition important to every being. The food that we eat every day contains nutrients that are divided into two groups: Micronutrients and Macronutrients. The body needs more Macronutrients to give energy and in turn, give the exact number of antibodies to strengthen the immune system.

Nutrition resiliency, on the other hand, is the ability and capacity to recover quickly from difficulties related to food and dietary shocks without suffering impaired growth or increased morbidity. Nutrition and resilience are co-dependent and mutually reinforcing. Integrating resilience thinking into nutrition programming and vice versa would give greater benefits. On the other hand, improving the resilience of the community can also address factors affecting malnutrition, thus, improved resilience means improved nutrition (2022 NM Talking Points).

e-HISGOT is part of the region’s Social and Behavior Change Communication plan meant to influence the Central Visayas community to adopt healthier food choices and practice healthy lifestyles to help prevent the onset of malnutrition and diet-related diseases. Now on its second year, the program continues to be a medium for information dissemination using social media, specifically Facebook as the platform.

The episode was aired on 21 July 2022 via NNC 7 official Facebook page. The episode showcased a technical discussion facilitated by Nutrition Officer III Nasudi G. Soluta. The episode featured a story of a selfless mother who is undergoing financial problems due to economic instability and an ongoing pandemic in turn unable to provide good quality nutrition for her family, especially her children.

In the technical discussion, NO III Soluta shared that there are foods that are within the budget that still contains a lot of nutrients. She further gave examples like monggo as a good protein alternative. And while snacking, munch on kamote rather than chips as it is much cheaper and contains more fiber.

There are also a lot of ways to prepare cheaper meals yet still healthy, she added. She further reminded the netizens to be creative in cooking and preparing meals for the family. (ND II James Aaron S. Perez, RND)