Damascus-SANA
Today, the Ministries of Health and Education completed the necessary preparations to conduct a study on the nutritional status of students in the first cycle of basic education schools in various governorates.
In a statement to SANA, Al-Tawashi indicated that studying the nutritional status of schoolchildren contributes to knowing the physical and mental health status of students from six to 12 years old by selecting random samples that include 10,080 students from 420 schools, an average of 30 schools from each governorate.
Al-Tawashi indicated that the study, which is being carried out in cooperation with the Central Bureau of Statistics, focuses through the health teams on recording the target group’s data in terms of height and weight, hemoglobin analysis, and a questionnaire on their dietary pattern through a form distributed to the families.
According to Al-Tawashi, the study also includes an aspect about the school environment in terms of the availability of clean water, sterilization of water tanks, and the distribution of meals in some schools within the school feeding program implemented in cooperation with the World Food Program, in addition to knowing the types of foods sold in school canteens.
Al-Tawashi explained that the survey for the study is carried out by joint teams between school health and health directorates in the governorates, which were trained centrally by the Directorate of School Health in the Ministry of Education and the Nutrition Program in the Primary Health Care Directorate in the Ministry of Health.
Al-Tawashi pointed out that the school health departments held meetings with school principals to provide a detailed explanation of the study, its importance and the mechanism for its implementation in schools, stressing that participation in the nutritional survey is completely voluntary, and parents' approval will be obtained in writing before their children participate in it.
Al-Tawashi indicated the importance of the survey in terms of supporting the health of students and enhancing the mechanism for taking care of it, in addition to determining the results of the school feeding program implemented in cooperation with the World Food Program and identifying the schools that need more support.
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