FG Tasked On National Protein-led Nutrition Policy

The Federal Government has been called upon to urgently develop and implement a national protein-led nutrition policy to address and curtail the rising incidence of protein deficiency in Nigeria.

Dr. Adepeju Adeniran, a professional physician and an experienced public health expert, who made this call recently, noted that efforts to effectively tackle protein deficiency must include household food improvement, enhanced protein availability, protein affordability and multi-sectoral planning.

Adeniran, who is also the co-founder and national chairperson of the Nigerian chapter of Women in Global Health, tasked the government to prioritise the availability and affordability of protein-rich foods in the country.

Speaking on the nutritional requirements of the average individual, she stated that carbohydrates, proteins, healthy oils and minerals all have their place in healthy diet compositions, but proteins are nearly always neglected.

The public health expert explained that the need for a national protein nutrition policy arises from the urgent desire to target measured problems like household food security, child undernutrition, maternal and child health, infectious disease prevention, amongst other national indicators.

According to Dr Adeniran, “A nutritional policy could target the public’s access to information about a nutrition-related health condition. For example, the United States public-private collaboration campaign to influence the increase in public dairy consumption tagged, “got milk?” Nutrition policies have also targeted fortification of foods with minerals to increase the public’s consumption of such nutrients through eating foods rich in them. Many examples of these exist in global health.”

Dr Adepeju revealed that “In Nigeria, iodine deficiency was combated by increasing the public’s education of the benefits of iodine in the diet, improving the knowledge of iodine deficiency conditions and finally by the fortification of domestic table salt with iodine to increase the consumption of iodine in the home.”

She stated, “In Vietnam, iron-deficiency anaemia was targeted by delivering iron supplements especially to women