The
importance of food hygiene for community development The quality of our life is
very much determined by the quality of the food that we eat. Food is paramount
for human health and well-being as it’s mentioned in the Universal declaration
of human rights in the article 25, together with clothing, housing and health care.
Notwithstanding the objectives and rhetorical statements periodically put forth
by governments and international organizations, the current trends related to
hunger and malnutrition are dire, with an estimated 821 million undernourished
people in 2017 (compared to 784 million in 2015) one third of which live in
South Asia. Children are especially vulnerable to malnutrition as this hampers
their full development and their ability to learn and lead a healthy and
fulfilling life.
Currently an estimated 149 million children are stunted
worldwide with India having one of the world’s highest children under nutrition
rates. According to the UN 4 out of 10 children in India are not meeting their
full human potential because of chronic under nutrition or stunting, leading to
diminished learning capacities, poor school performance and increased risks of
chronic diseases. As it’s shown by researches promoted by the WHO, unsafe food
creates a vicious circle of disease and malnutrition particularly among the
most vulnerable individuals such as children.
For these reasons the Indian
Government decided to launch the National Programme of Nutritional Support to
Primary Education in 1995, also known as Mid-Day Meal Scheme its stated goals
being: enhancing enrollment, retention and attendance and simultaneously
improving nutritional levels among children. Unfortunately some surveys and
researches showed the gap between the stated goals of the programme and its
actual implementation, the shortcomings being: lack of proper infrastructure
for the processing, handling and provision of food; the poor nutritional value
of the food provided; the lack of implementation in certain areas at all; lack
of funds for the implementation of the programme and, as a result, the failure
to meet the predetermined goals. Food hygiene is therefore a paramount issue to
be addressed in order to prevent food borne diseases and malnutrition, and this
has to be tackled both on the educational side (providing knowledge about the
measures to take in order to have safe food) and the physical side (providing
access to the necessary tools and infrastructure necessary to have safe food).
The WHO defines food hygiene as the conditions and measures necessary to ensure
the safety of food from production to consumption and identified five key areas
related to the implementation of
The measures necessary to guarantee food hygiene.
These issues needs to be addressed mainly in the rural areas where there’s a
lack of awareness and infrastructure about the measures to take in order to
prevent food borne diseases and where communities are most vulnerable to
problems such as lack of access to services. FAO recognizes that schools are an
ideal setting to support nutrition and development as children are at an age
where food and health habits are being formed, and they can also influence
families and be a channel for wider community participation, therefore creating
benefits that extend beyond the classroom to households and communities. Given
the shortcomings proved by the governmental program about school meals, the
role of NGOs such as HEEALS are fundamental in order to tackle the
aforementioned issues, providing educational and physical tools, and promoting
development and health through a direct dialogue with the communities
themselves. Only through a direct dialogue the empowerment of such communities
can be obtained, by listening to the voices of the people on a grassroots level
and giving them the freedom to choose. As shown by Amartya Sen freedom is both
a mean and an end to development and is necessary to avoid the vicious
circle of poverty.
- - Andrea
Source
www.un.org ›
universal-declaration-human-rights 1 https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/hunger/
2 ibid. 3 https://in.one.un.org/un-priority-areas-in-india/nutrition-and-food-security/
4 https://www.who.int/health-topics/food-safety/ 5https://mhrd.gov.in/mid-day-meal
6https://scroll.in/latest/935227/;https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2019/09/07/UP-govt-was-aware-7ofsevere-shortcomings-of-mid-day-meal-scheme.html;https://indianexpress.com/article/india/
over-900-children-reported-ill-in-last-three-years-after-consuming-mid-day-meals-hrd-ministry-
5828876/;https://indianexpress.com/article/india/priyanka-gandhi-uttar-pradesh-governmentschool-mid-day-meal-6161112/;https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/health/mid-day-mealhas-failed-to-attract-children-to-government-schools-says-cag-audit-52267
https://www.who.int/foodsafety/areas_work/food-hygiene/5keys/en/
8http://www.fao.org/school-food/overview/en/ 9A. Sen, “Development as freedom”,
1999 10
The
importance of food hygiene for community development The quality of our life is
very much determined by the quality of the food that we eat. Food is paramount
for human health and well-being as it’s mentioned in the Universal declaration
of human rights in the article 25, together with clothing, housing and health care.
Notwithstanding the objectives and rhetorical statements periodically put forth
by governments and international organizations, the current trends related to
hunger and malnutrition are dire, with an estimated 821 million undernourished
people in 2017 (compared to 784 million in 2015) one third of which live in
South Asia. Children are especially vulnerable to malnutrition as this hampers
their full development and their ability to learn and lead a healthy and
fulfilling life. 
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