The Ministry of Health in conjunction with Ministry of Education launched Salt Awareness Week at Dilkusha Girls School on Monday.

The National Food and Nutrition Centre is also part of the awareness week where they mainly focused on children’s diet.

The focus was on reducing salt intake by the students and the ministry has urged children to choose food with lower salt content to help reduce their salt intake which can lead to bad health in future.

Dilkusha Girls School headteacher Amali Qarau said the Salt Awareness Week would encourage students to take note of their diet.

“This awareness would help children make the right snack choices,” she said.

“Salt is a silent killer; it accumulates diseases at a younger age.  This is the right time to help children make the right choices; this awareness is very important for them,” she said.

Meanwhile St Agnes Primary School in Suva also marked the Salt Awareness Week yesterday at their school.

Headteacher Jone Benedito said they were glad to take part in the awareness where they had encouraged students to take low salt foods.

“We have told our canteen ladies not to sell junk food to students and prepare low salt food which would improve the student’s health and performance in the school,” Mr Benedito said.

A representative from the Ministry of Education, Virisila Naisele, said the initiative was to encourage students in 84 schools to have a low intake of salt in their diets.

Alvina Deo, senior nutrionist at the National Food and Nutrition centre, said the awareness week had been launched to allow students to be more cautious of what they ate at an early age.

The Salt Awareness Week ends tomorrow.

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