Recognizing the importance of improving the nutritional status of adolescents, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is conducting a study involving 10 to 14 years old children in Marikina City.
“Dati ang inaaral natin sa malnutrition ay iyong mga infant at yung mga (Before, we used to study malnutrition among infants) and below five years old but this time, it is for adolescents,” DOST Secretary Fortunato “Boy” T. de la Peña during his weekly report on May 14.
De la Peña said that the DOST-National Capital Region (NCR) and DOST- Food and Research Institute - (FNRI) have partnered on this research and development study on the Development and Implementation of Nutrition Intervention program to improve nutritional status of adolescents the city.
“The project will provide one main meal (covering about a third of the energy and nutrient requirement) using the Pinggang Pinoy meal plan and recommended caloric requirement,” de la Peña explained.
De la Peña explained that the implementation of Phase 1 covers the development of menu, standardization of recipes and nutrition information materials to be incorporated in the nutrition intervention program in the second phase.
To date, de la Peña said that the group “already conducted recipe testing and standardization of 66 set meals.”
Among these are squamonte pancake with fried egg, kamunggo turon, munggo patties, porkwalong lumpia, kangrrot fried rice and omurice with fried egg.
These, he added, are in addition to the “ongoing simultaneous development and pretesting of nutrition awareness materials.”