STATE Minister in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information Floyd Green has pledged to tackle nutritional and health challenges among the country’s students.

Green made the pledge while addressing a small gathering recently at GraceKennedy’s downtown Kingston office for the official launch of Child Month, to be observed in May.

He said his plan is to start with the implementation of the national schoolfeeding policy.

“Nutritional support is a critical part of every child’s development. It is well established that nutritional problems affect the cognitive development of our children and their school’s performance. The Ministry of Education, Youth and Information will be implementing a national schoolfeeding policy to formally guide the programme for the next academic year,” Green announced.

The state minister said that the policy is necessary to ensure that stakeholders are presented with a better picture of the nutritional requirements of the nation’s children so that they can be better fed.

“The goal of the policy is to increase educational outcome of the student population through targeted nutritional support,” Green told the gathering.

The policy, which he said should be implemented at the beginning of the 2016-2017 academic year, will be aimed at:

• advancing improvements in the students’ cognitive development by providing at least one nutritious meal each school day;

• improving the targeting of beneficiaries of the schoolfeeding programme;

• promoting nutritional education of children and their families through a collaboration with relevant agencies and ministries;

• promoting consumption of local agricultural produce; and

• strengthening the ministry to execute, monitor and evaluate the schoolfeeding programme as well as sustainability of the programme.

He said the commitment of the ministry to ensure that students receive the nutritional support they need is reflected in the progress that has been made in the delivery of balanced meals to students.

Green said that, under the current schoolfeeding programme, the ministry provides breakfast and lunches to students at the early childhood and primary level as well as for those who attend institutions such as Young Women’s Christian Association, Young Men’s Christian Association, women centres and special education institutions.

Meanwhile, other speakers at the function identified malnutrition, obesity and other associated health matters as major points of concern.

Citing the findings of recent research, chief executive officer of the Child Development Agency, Rosalee Gage Grey, said that between the years 2009 and 2015 statistics show that in Jamaica alone approximately 10,000 children and adolescents have been diagnosed with type one diabetes. She described the statistics as troubling and suggested that Jamaicans need to become more conscious of the importance of proper diets, especially in light of the temptations that come with convenience and accessibility of fast food.

Keynote speaker at the event, director of child and adolescent health at the Ministry of Health, Dr Judith Leiba-Thomas, identified mental illness as a cause for concern among children. She said with the associated stigma, even parents ignore the signs by dismissing them as mere coincidences.

“Mental health and physical health are inextricably linked, which means that they are reliant on each other. We cannot simply wait until it destroys our children to address it,” Dr Judith Leiba-Thomas urged.

She explained a three-point system that rearing strong, knowledgeable, healthy children requires emphasis on mental nutrition, immunisation and activities.

She said the system impresses on parents the importance of observing the foods that their children consume, educating them and creating a bond with them which reduces the likelihood of them engaging in dangerous lifestyles. The system, she said, encourages children to exercise, rest and engage in positive activities.

Former GraceKennedy CEO Douglas Orane — who is patron of the National Child Month Committee (NCMC), the non-profit committee that has spearheaded the Child Month initiative since its existence — declared that the launch of the event reminded attendees that giving and caring for others do not only benefit the receiver, but it also the source of happiness for the giver.

“I implore you all today to consider the significance of Child Month. And even if you don’t have money, give of your time, be a volunteer and help a child; children need us,” Orane encouraged.