Subject - Encouraging communities to make a healthy start

Posted : (Thursday 19th July 2007 ) By - Jane (Registered User)

Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Somali project managers and community group leaders came together on Wednesday 27th June to learn about helping their communities to make a ‘Healthy Start’.

Representatives from Bradford and Manchester Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) came together, at Carlisle Business Centre in Bradford, to spread the word about maternal and child nutrition, and family services offered by PCTs.

The new Healthy Start initiative from the Department of Health, replaces the old Welfare Food scheme. Through the scheme qualifying families and pregnant women are provided with vouchers that can be exchanged for fresh fruit and vegetables as well as milk and infant formula, plus free vitamin supplements. It also provides the opportunity to access quality information and advice about healthy family diet and breastfeeding, as well as broader health issues.

The Department of Health has identified that there may be specific health issues associated with diet amongst these communities, including a potential increase in rickets that is related to Vitamin D deficiency. Part of the campaign’s objective is to educate communities about the need for a healthy diet and the vitamins that are featured in key fruits and vegetables that can help prevent deficiencies in young children.

Consultant nutritionist, registered dietician and best-selling author, Azmina Govindji, helped promote healthy eating messages and carried out a number of cooking demonstrations, showing how to effectively use one weeks allowance of Healthy Start vouchers to incorporate more fruit and vegetables into traditional meals:

“I took a £5.60 allowance, which is what a pregnant mother with a child under four would receive weekly. I then demonstrated how to combine fruit and vegetables purchased with the Healthy Start vouchers with common products from your household larder, to create traditional, fun and healthy meals for all the family.”

For more information about the Healthy Start initiative and to check whether you qualify go to www.healthystart.nhs.uk