PRESS
RELEASE:: 24.01.2005
A new guide to Healthy Eating and Bangladeshi Eating
Patterns
A
targeted
approach to promoting good health
A
new guide ‘Eating for a Healthy Life’ has been produced as a
result of a joint collaboration between Public Health at
Camden Primary Care Trust and the Bengali Women’s Health
Project (BWHP), a consortium of community organisations in
Camden.
Our work with the local community has made us aware of the
need for more specifically targeted information on healthy
eating. Such information needs to be directly relevant to
the eating patterns and ways of thinking about diet and
health characteristic of individual community. In
particular, there is a need for information that gives the
community members a fuller picture of what healthy eating
means within the context of their traditional eating
patterns, what the relationships is between diet and health
and what the key issues are in terms of their own health.
The guide was developed with the main focus on the diet and
food patterns of the Bangladeshi community in the UK. It
includes basic information on what kinds of foods our bodies
need and why, and then provides comprehensive information on
the main food groups, as well as fat, sugar, salt, fluids
and fibre. It also looks at breakfast and snack habits and
at the factors that influence our eating habits. This
information is then compared with Bangladeshi eating
patterns. Tips and suggestions about possible healthy
changes to this diet are offered where appropriate. Finally
basic information is provided on the important vitamins and
minerals.
Our plan is to use this guide extensively with our work with
the Bangladeshi community in a range of settings. Current
work around the guide includes a training programme for
cross sector professionals which will focus ways of actively
promoting and disseminating the guide’s messages about
healthy eating to the community.
Future plans involve using the guide in our work with other
communities. To facilitate this, the guide has been designed
in such a way that the sections on Bangladeshi eating
patterns can be replaced by sections on the diet and eating
patterns of other groups.
Kawser Zannath
Project Officer Health Improvement in
Primary Care
Public Health Camden PCT
