NUTRENTO, a commitment to improve nutrition in school environments
Dr. Marcos Galván, NUTRENTO© Project Technical Director,
Mtra. Jhazmín Hernández Cabrera, NUTRENTO© Project Operational Coordinator,
In order to develop and validate a healthy school environment model to improve nutrition and increase physical activity, both in Chile and Mexico, and to generate a public policy on the subject, scientific communities and institutions joined forces to integrate different products with the same purpose in a single project. Thus NUTRENTO© was born, which consists of an Observatory of Healthy School Environments, the design of a model of healthy school environments and the implementation of actions to intervene in school environments through teachers.
The background of this project was in 2018, when the Executive Secretariat Elige Vivir Sano of the Ministry of Social Development and Family of the government of Chile, in conjunction with the Academic Body of Nutritional Epidemiology of the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo (UAEH) of Mexico, and in collaboration with the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology of the University of Chile, presented the project entitled "Development of a model of sustainable healthy school environments", which was selected for funding by the Chile-Mexico Joint Cooperation Fund of the Chilean Agency for International Development Cooperation (AGCID) and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID), a decentralized body of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The role of the Observatory
NUTRENTO©, a word composed of "nutrition" and "trend", is a non-profit observatory, formed by the school community to share experiences, information and training to build and maintain sustainable healthy food environments in schools in Mexico, Chile and Latin American countries.
It is a tool that aims to promote the efforts of schools and teachers to build better food environments and eating habits. This platform will allow the management of information related to school food environments as a focal point of analysis, from the perspective of teachers as key agents of change.
NUTRENTO© will promote experiences of good practices to improve healthy school environments and propose possible solutions. This observatory seeks to promote collaborative work through a network of teachers and experts so that they can share and publish information related to actions that improve the food environment in their schools.
The NUTRENTO© platform is composed of 5 elements:
- User network made up of teachers and experts in school environments.
- Web app for the evaluation of school food environments.
- Diagnostic information on food environments at the municipal and regional levels.
- Experiences and good practices of teachers.
- Training resources for teachers.
The NUTRENTO© components and their interactions will make it possible to share diagnostic information and strategies to promote healthy food environments in primary schools in Mexico, Chile and Latin America through the participation and involvement of teachers and a network of experts on the subject.
For the observatory, teachers are agents of change in the school context in an immediate and direct way, since they are the main managers of the food environment at the interpersonal level of children through their work: education.
This observatory will be linked to training resources for teachers, will have its own and external information from the network of users, linking data on good practices that contribute to the actions of school communities in improving school food environments.
NUTRENTO© technical and scientific support is provided by the Interdisciplinary Network of Experts in School Food Environments, the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo, the National Pedagogical University, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Antioquia (Colombia), the Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology of the University of Chile, the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (Guatemala), the Ibero-American Foundation of Nutrition (Spain) and the University of Costa Rica.
If you wish to know more about the Observatory, we invite you to visit: https: //nutrento.org/
You can also contact us at: observatorio_nutricionales@uaeh.edu.mx
WHO IS IT?
Jhazmín Hernández Cabrera has a degree in Nutrition from the UAEH, a master's degree in Clinical Nutrition from the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla and is currently a PhD student in Healthy Behavioral Sciences at this university. She has three diplomas, one in nutrition in physical activity and sports, child nutrition and pharmacology for nutritionists.
Since 2015 she is the operational coordinator of the Project for the Prevention of Overweight and Obesity in Schoolchildren in Hidalgo PESOEH in the UAEH. She has experience in teaching at a higher level, in the supervision of Food Spaces of the DIF System of the state government, as well as the operational staff of PESOEH; she has also practiced her profession in companies and private consulting.
She has taken training courses on topics such as nutrition, diabetes, adult patients and enteral feeding, nutrition and pregnancy, obesity and eating disorders, gastroenterology, nutrition and cancer, sports activities, among the most important ones; and has given conferences on these topics in Puebla, Veracruz and Hidalgo.
She is currently the Operational Coordinator of the NUTRENTO© Project.
WHO IS IT?
Marcos Marcelo Galván García studied nutrition at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, a master's degree in science methodology at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional and a doctorate in nutrition and food at the Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de Alimentos of the Universidad de Chile, in Santiago, Chile.
He is currently a research professor in the academic area of Nutrition at the Institute of Health Sciences of the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.
He is a member of the National System of Researchers level 2 and has a desirable profile of the Program for the Professional Development of Teachers of the Ministry of Public Education.
Among other awards, Dr. Marcos Galvan won the first place in America against obesity awarded by the EPODE International Network and the Government of Mexico City in 2014 and was awarded one of the best papers in oral modality at the 19th International Congress of Nutrition held in Bangkok in 2009.
Her line of research is child nutrition, from cognitive development and nutrition, factors associated with obesity and childhood growth retardation, as well as evaluation of intervention programs in food, nutrition and health.
Currently Technical Director of the NUTRENTO© Project.
