Science on a plate: Mediterranean diet

Name of the activity: Science on a plate: Mediterranean diet

Country/NMO: Croatia (CroMSIC)

Program: Healthy Lifestyles & Non-Communicable Diseases

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Campaign. Combination of education and advocacy. Campaigns create awareness in society about a certain topic (education aspect) and try to funnel this awareness into pressure on the decision makers to adapt policies accordingly (advocacy aspect).

General description:

Activity includes educating medical students and by Y-peer method, educating high school students about unbalanced unhealthy diet and life habits. They will learn about proved benefits of Mediterrenean diet and their effect on human body long term and all that by evidence based articles and researces. Also, they will be able to define their own good and bad habits and learn how to change them.

Focus area:

Prevention of NCDs and Health Promotion

Problem statement:

Problem that our activity is trying to address is lack of eduaction in lifestyle medicine. Students are only taught how to cure disease but they are taught barely nothing about prevention and advantages of proper diet and healthy habits. If they are educated enough, as doctors they can educate their patients about primary prevention measures.

Target groups:

Medical students, Youth

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Youth

Objectives and indicators of success:

– educating students – 80% correct answers in questionnaire after project is finished

– reaching the University coordinator for food in canteens – Mediterannean menu introduced in student canteen

– healthier food in canteen generaly – removing deep fried food from canteen, introducing cereals for breakfast

Methodology:

Doctors and nutritionists will make workshops for medical students who will after that be Y-peer educators and attend biology classes in high school where they will make the same workshops with high-schoolers and educate them.

Plans for evaluation:

We will give questionaries to students before and after the workshops. In one part questions are about what they will learn in workshops, and the other part are their own habits and if they think they should be changed and how.