[Palau]『Be careful with juices!』
If asked, “Do you know how much sugar is in your drink?” how would you respond?
In recent years, the consumption of sweetened beverages has increased in Palau due to the westernization of the Palauan diet. According to a WHO survey, three out of four adults drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage every day in Palau.
As a result of these dietary changes, Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease, are rapidly increasing in Palau, and these diseases account for over 70% of deaths. Obesity is a major cause of NCDs and affects 72.5% of the adult population in Palau.
In an effort to increase awareness of this problem Peace Winds working closely with the Palau Ministry of Health has been visiting schools throughout Palau to raise awareness of school children about NCDs and their cause and prevention.
Awareness-raising activities at schools are part of primary prevention and we are teaching students about health. This is exactly the kind of health reform that starts in schools!
An outline of one such set of activities follows. The theme of our activity was, “How much sugar is in your drink?
We discussed how sugar worked in our bodies and the health problems caused by excessive sugar consumption, especially obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
After hearing about the amount of sugar in beverages and its impact on health, and visually seeing the amount of sugar in the drinks which they often have, they were surprised and said, “I didn’t realize how much sugar was in a single bottle of lemon juice…”
Awareness-raising activity at school #1
Awareness-raising activity at school #2
Handmade board (Daily sugar intake for men and women and the amount of sugar contained in each sweetened beverage)
In addition to direct interaction with children in school, we also worked closely with the teachers themselves. In June, teachers had a group workshop on child obesity and it helped them to gain a better understanding of obesity prevention. We hope this will strengthen collaboration among teachers and lead to unified school-wide action in the future. One unexpected lesson that resulted from this workshop was that we learned that the amount of snacks and exercise in any individual school varied from school to school, because there were no uniform policies among schools throughout Palau.
Health workshop for teachers
Presentation after group work
We believe it is important for the young, who are the future of Palau, to develop healthy lifestyles and reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases. Therefore, we plan to visit more schools in the future and conduct activities to talk about new topics to help prevent such diseases.
This project is supported by a grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan through the Japan NGO Cooperation Grant Aid as well as your generous donations.