Adolescent Nutrition

Save the Children has commissioned a review on policy and programming on adolescent nutrition in SUN + countries - undertaken by Tanya Khara and Emily Mates. It should be published within the next month.

While we talk about adolescent health nutrition, apart from the anthropocentric assessment, we should also focus on Iron deficiency Anaemia (IDA) which is one of the major public health problems in many developing countries. The blood hemoglobin level is the indicator to categorize Anaemia as Mild, Moderate and Severe. Accordingly interventions like awareness on feeding practices of locally available iron rich foods, behavioural change communication (BCC) to adopt healthy practices, Weekly Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation, iron fortification, providing iron rich ready to eat food products, etc may be given. Then the change in Hemoglobin level may be taken as a indicator to assess the nutrition status. Prevalence of IDA may be calculated initially and at the end of the intervention in case of community based interventions as individual change may not be possible to captured.

Hello all, and specifically Frances - is the report that you mentioned in this feed available? If so, could you please share the link? Thank you!

A brief assessment conducted in secondary schools by ACF India and Fight Hunger Foundation in Burhanpur district of Madhya Pradesh found that the formal education imparted to youths many was a times unable to answer the curiousness associated with changes during adolescence.

In order to overcome this barrier, ACF India and Fight Hunger Foundation developed first of its kind training manual for school teachers to orient and sensitize students through class discussion and activities on various topics related to health and nutrition.

The idea was to plan and design an effective learning environment supported by an innovative tool like the manual, which can be easily integrated into the existing curriculum as a pedagogical strategy for transformative learning thereby maximizing student learning and increasing their skills and confidence.

The manual is designed with an aim to impart knowledge on 6 key thematic areas namely Nutrition, Health, Nutrition during life cycle, Malnutrition, Social and Emotional Health and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. In total the 6 thematic areas cater to 49 key topics, illustrated with pictures and complemented by practical recommendations and activities. Considering 53 weeks in a year, the manual is developed with an aim to pass one to two key messages per week to students studying in class 8th to 12th (13 to 18 years of age).

I could send across the manual, but the person will have to pay for it. If interested, you can send an email to contact@fighthunerfoundation.org

sorry, the correct email address is contact@fighthungerfoundation.org