Lecture on healthy nutrition and nutritional status in Iraq 2014

Within the cultural season of the department of biology at the college of education for pure sciences – Ibn al-Haytham, a lecture was held at the seminar hall on Sunday 9/3/2014 entitled (healthy nutrition and nutritional state in Iraq 2014) by the instructor Khalil Muhsin Mahdi in the presence of a number of faculty staff and students. The lecturer said that healthy nutrition is considered essential to guarantee the health of the individual and society where the nutritional surveys in 2011 and 2013 showed that there are continued nutritional problems suffered by the citizens in addition to obesity which requires  a national strategy to control it. Studies showed that 61% of death of children under five years are caused by malnutrition and 23 % is due to a lack of vitamin A in addition to its impact on IQ and learning where the lack of iodine causing reduction of IQ (10-15) degrees and the lack of iron in food (5-10) degrees and that the improvement of nutrition led to increasing the productivity of the individual 30%. There are several factors the lay an important role in prolonging life:

1 – Genetics 19%.
2 – Environment 20%.
3 – Health care 10%.
4 – Lifestyle factors ( healthy nutrition and exercise ) 51 %

The mult – indicators national survey conducted in collaboration with the ministry of planning, health organization and UNICEF included 36,500 Iraqi families in 18 provinces showed that the mortality rate for infants and children under five years for every (1,000) live births was as follows:

year     infants     children under 5 years
1999     101                      122
2006      35                        41
2013      33                        38

Status                                    2006    2013
General malnutrition (underweight / Age)  7.6     8.4
Stunting (lack of height / age)           21.4    22.3
Emaciation (underweight / height)         4.8     6.9

The study on school students demonstrated that during 2013:
1 – 3.4% suffer from underweight.
2 – 8.9% suffer from growth disability.
3 – 2.9% suffer from thinness .
4 – 18.6 % suffer from overweight .
5- 6 % suffer from obesity.

The study showed that the lack of iodine in food for elementary school students during the year 2014 that 23.4 % of school students are suffering from iodine deficiency. School children (6-12) years suffer from anemia that increased by 1.20 % in 2014. The Iraqi society in recent times suffered from the problem of obesity that is an overweight because of the accumulation of excess fat in body as a result of an imbalance between energy intake and this problem can be solved by reducing the amount of fat, sweets, salt and sugar intake at each meal and by using low-fat foods, fruits calcium rich foods. The U.S. department of agriculture developed a guide for daily food as a nutritional pyramid for basic needs and the required exercise activities.

Comments are disabled.