Good eating habits can be learnt from an early age. But how are they taught? UniCamillus is helping to answer this question with two initiatives aimed at promoting the culture of good, healthy eating in primary schools. Lecturers from the MSc Human Nutrition Sciences at UniCamillus are working together to promote nutrition education and prevention projects in two schools in Rome: one started on 10th March at the Istituto Comprensivo Ennio Morricone, in the San Basilio area, while the other starts on 19th March at the Istituto Comprensivo Montessori – Maria Clotilde Pini, Viale Libia.
UniCamillus lecturers Gianfranco Peluso, Costanza Montagna, Marco Marchetti and Rosa Maria Paragliola will be involved in the first project on prevention and nutrition education.
“We offer a monitoring and prevention service”, explains Costanza Montagna, programme director and lecturer on the MSc Nutrition Sciences programme. “Between 10th and 13th March, we carried out check-ups on children in the third and fourth years of primary school. We took their anthropometric measurements (weight, height and waist circumference) and asked them and their families to fill in a questionnaire about their eating habits. We now have to analyse and evaluate the data we’ve collected and then help children and their parents follow correct advice and good practices“. The UniCamillus lecturer adds: “This is data for information and education as well as for research. The feedback to families and the school community will come through the creation of individual nutrition help desks, which will offer specific advice aimed at improving children’s health”. In addition, at the end of the school year, when the school’s Science Festival takes place, UniCamillus lecturers will hold nutrition education workshops with practical and fun experiences for the children.
The project involving the Istituto Comprensivo Montessori – Maria Clotilde Pini, located in Viale Libia, includes two recreational, pedagogical and educational workshops that are part of the ‘Roma Scuole Aperte’ programme launched by the local council. The lecturers in charge of the project are, once again, Costanza Montagna and Dr Lara Lanuzza, a paediatric nutritionist and lecturer at UniCamillus. “These are out-of-school activities that we carry out in the afternoon, without medical check-ups or tests, but with the aim of teaching children the importance of good eating habits and of learning about the different types of food we eat”, explains Montagna.
This second UniCamillus project involves the active participation of both students and lecturers. The initiative is therefore aimed at all students enrolled in the Nutrition Sciences programme, and this first edition will pave the way for increased participation in future editions, according to the lecturers in charge of organising it.
