More and more people live unhealthy, without concerning themselves with the consequences. This is a tendency, which is observed at the children as well. According to a research from the National Center for protection of the community health, 15% of the children suffer from overweight and another 5% from obesity. The main reason for this tendency is the bad status, in which the current sport’s basis in the schools finds itself in. The systematic overfeeding of a child leads to overweight, which in the beginning usually makes parents happy, because they consider this as a sign of good health. Obesity in young age is a precondition for the development of many serious illnesses in a later age – atherosclerosis, heart attack, sugar diabetes, increased blood pressure. An obese child isn’t healthier, on the contrary – it often gets sick and its future health is exposed to much more risks.
The consumption of more sugar, candied foods and drinks causes an increase in the glucoses in blood and an increased release of the hormone insulin. The synthesis of fats is increased and so is their level in the blood. Sugar tolerance is decreased and the child is exposed to sugar diabetes. It’s a proven fact, that infants consume 25% more food, when sugar is added to them. They get used to this and start preferring sweeter foods, which then become a precondition for systematic overfeeding and obesity. On the other hand, sugar favors the development of microorganism in the oral cavity, which degrades the tooth enamel and cause tooth caries.
When consuming more protein foods (milk products, meat, eggs) and less plant foods, there is the risk of overfeeding with proteins, which also has a negative effect on the organism. The child grows faster and it’s organism not only matures faster, but grows old faster as well. Resistance of infections decreases both when lacking and also when systematically overburdening the body with proteins.
Increased consumption of fats (butter, fatty meats, fried foods and deserts) is also a condition for overfeeding and obesity of a child. Fats bring much energy, lead to sating of the child and refusal of vegetables and cereal and other foods, which carry more vitamins, minerals and fibers, which protect from constipation, atherosclerosis, colon cancer and other chronic illnesses in a young age.
Consumption of salty foods leads to sodium and water retention in the tissues and preconditions an increased blood pressure. This creates familiarization with the preference towards salty foods, which remains throughout a person’s life. This is why it is recommended that no salt is added in any baby food.
Around 81% of the children and students Bulgaria wish to play sports, but they can’t do this in the current condition that most schools are in. In regards to the recognition of this issue, the idea of this project was born. Its goal is to develop long term habits for a healthier way of life among children in school age, through active sporting and healthy eating.
Project Objectives
1) to contribute to the improvement of the teaching of the healthy eating by using visual aids(presentations, videos, pictures, wallpapers ...etc.) to facilitate a learner-centred approach.
2) to improve the knowledge level of the students & to promote healthy eating through provision of "ingredients reading days" by holding healthy eating days, conferences, training seminars, or through introduction of healthy eating into the teaching or process.
3) to improve adapting a healthy eating habit by enhancing the quality of informative materials.
4) to improve efficiency in healthy eating tasks in order to focus more time on providing improved health education services to students.
5) for the integration of in the curriculum, developing and supporting educational content by the help of doctors and high school students with the necessary support and knowledge and so, raising the quality and widening the range of health teaching and healthy eating information materials
6) to enable teachers to involve students in the creation of useful products to attract attention to the dangerous eating with genetically modified materials.
7) to lead the students, families and school management to be a careful and selective buyer at the market.
8) to enable individuals to make researches about the foods they consume and to learn having a product controlled with this project.
9) to motivate local authority staff and teachers by exchanging best practice and promoting cooperation
ISHWEA intends to address a number of different subjects/problems as below:
1) Keeping the students, families, school staff, teachers and managers on the alert of products including new and dangerous ingredients by holding trainings, conferences, seminars, questionnaires etc.
2) to establish links with schools/institutions abroad, using e-mail and video-conferencing
3) assessment and testing, including automated test generation and adaptive feedback
4) to address the requirements of minority groups, special educational needs children, socially disadvantaged children.
5) access to online resources giving information about the foods.