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Mwamodo, thank you for your comment. Yes it is true milk contains all the required amounts of nutrients (quality & quantity) in a balanced way for growth and development for the first few months of life of an offspring. However, the amount (quantity and quality) of nutrients in milk decline as time progresses in the course of breast feeding. Therefore other foods need to be introduced to the diet of the infant to meet the nutrient gap (requirement Vs growth velocity) that occur after six months of exclusive breastfeeding. In addition, the woman ability to breast feed also declines with time. At most a woman can breast feed successively for 24 months then there is significant reduction in the ability to make more milk. This is due to changes in hormonal profile of the woman whereby more oestrogen is produced and tend to interfere with lactation performance of the woman. All said but the lactation performance depends on the nutritional status and dietary adequacy of the lactating woman.

I moved a post to an existing topic: Introduction and Icebreaker: Tell us what a typical meal at your table looks like

Team.

I have come up with this topic on staple foods for specif tribes in Africa: why is it so?

thank u so much busi!!! its a nice opportunity to sharing different experiences related to nutrition. to yr surprise i knew about nutrition but i didnā€™t properly practiced. in any way after now am thinking to do this good way.

Hi Team.

I have taken some little time without peeping inside the lounge! Hope members you are all fine?

I would like to share with you about what is happening here in Uganda. Parliament of Uganda has declared 17-18 March, 2015 as Days to Promote Nutrition and Body Fitness. Activities to mark the Days will include; walking around Kampala City with promotional materials on Nutrition and Body fitness, that they will set up testing camps/centres around the city for HIV, TB, High pressure e.t.c. It is indeed very good for our parliament since they are mostly known for engaging in motions, debates and sessions that centre around their politics! But I am asking myself if they have serious plans to push for more budgets and financial allocations into nutritional and health programmes for children, mothers and the general public in Uganda! I will try to seek audience with some of them at a later stage.

Cheers,

Sarah.

This is wonderful @smawerere When the authorities are involved, things tend to go right. Nutrition and body fitness are important aspects of each individualā€™s health. We would like to hear more about it afterwards.

Cheers
Busi

Gald to be backā€¦this is Sheila Chimphamba from Malawis Zodiak Broadcasting station

Hello the discussion is becoming so interesting. Here in Dmtsi Weyane Tigray, Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia we are having In Station training about the importance of nutrition and the impact of Quality Protein Maize on women and child wealth. The other thing, we are discussing is what journalists can contribute on creating awareness on minimizing malnutrition and introducing healthy nutrition. Now we are designing programs running for next 16 weeks concerning nutrition and the importance Quality Protein Maize.
We have seen:
Mostly, the problem of poor nutrition is lack of awareness on how to have wealthy nutrition not poverty.
Addressing gender issues also has a vital role on nutrition.
Improving nutrition demands cooperative effort of different stakeholders.Therefore, integrated response is demanded.
There are some areas which farmers mostly have maize as a daily food. Some of their children faced different diseases with protein deficiency. Therefore, introducing Quality Protein Maize, (which contains 70% of protein owning striptophan and layasin) is vital.

You can help us what concerns can be covered here

Thank you

Hello @DanielDWET

Thanks for sharing. Indeed, in different areas each community needs specific information for specific reasons.

I would like to get your views on the current topic discussion: linking agricultural production and nutrition. What are your thoughts? Remember the resources we shared, they will give you an insight to the topic.

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in my opinion,i think prevention is better than cureā€¦Avoiding alcohol is going to do the pregnant woman a whole lot of goodā€¦from my little research,i understand that as little as a teaspoon of alcohol can affect the developing baby as the baby gets all his food from its motherā€™s bloodstream.When a mother eats,the food molecules are absorbed into the motherā€™s bloodstream by her small intestine.The molecules then flow to the placenta,are transferred to the babyā€™s bloodstream and flow to the baby through the umbilical cord.
This same feeding process is applied to alcohol,drugs,etcā€¦The mother puts her baby at risk when she introduces anything into her bloodstream that would be harmful for the baby.
My advice,eat healthy,eat lots of vegetables,lots of fruits,drink lots and lots of water and deliver a healthy baby.

Dear Busi.

You requested me to share more about the Parliamentary Days that concluded this ending week.

17th -18th March, 2015 were termed as Parliamentary Days in Uganda aimed at promoting Nutrition and Body Fitness for Ugandaā€™s Parliamentarians and the staff of Parliament . They have been sensitized on the importance of Nutrition and Body fitness. They have spent both days having sessions on Nutrition- good diet and good eating habits facilitated by experts.

They were in part told to avoid eating between meals since this makes them eat unnecessarily. That some of the food may not get assimilated in the body thereby resulting in obesity and heavy body weight. They were told to avoid taking too much alcohol as this makes some people lose appetite for food resulting in body weaknesses and loss of normal weight and good health. That much fats in the food affects the body system.

They were advised to avoid eating food especially from supermarkets which may not be fresh as many of them (supermarkets) sell stale products. They were encouraged to have physical exercises to keep themselves fit.

Other activities carried out include, testing for HIV, High blood pressure and diabetes. Services like; eye, dental and cancer screening were also provided.

This is interesting but we need to realise that we need also to encourage our people to eat other foods to complement what is contained in the maize. This should be considered as one of the staples and therefore donā€™t leave out the teff. It is rich in micronutrients as well as other nutrients more than what maize has. Promotion of quality maize should be accompanied with knowledge on dietary diversification based on what people have in their communities. Sometimes these programmes are implemented vertically without taking into account the other aspects of local diets. We definitely donā€™t want to condemn people to eating only maize just because we think that it has high protein!!!