Health promotion, nutrition and substance abuse prevention
What is tested
Health promotion, nutrition and substance abuse prevention - the knowledge and habits that protect health, plus the ability to recognise risks and suggest realistic prevention.
Nutrition
A balanced diet supplies energy, growth and protection. Local examples make answers stronger:
- Energy-giving foods: maize, rice, cassava, potatoes, millet.
- Body-building foods: beans, groundnuts, fish, eggs, meat, milk.
- Protective foods: fruits and vegetables such as mango, papaya, orange, tomato, leafy greens.
Water and fibre are also needed. Undernutrition includes kwashiorkor (protein deficiency, with swelling/oedema) and marasmus (severe energy deficiency, with wasting). Overweight and obesity are forms of malnutrition too.
Hygiene and health promotion
Health promotion means enabling people to improve their health - through clean water, handwashing with soap, safe food storage, latrines, mosquito nets, immunisation and health education. Prevention is usually cheaper and more effective than treatment.
Substance abuse
Common substances include alcohol, tobacco, cannabis (chamba) and solvents/glue. Effects include accidents, risky sexual behaviour, dependence, lung and liver damage, mental health problems, school dropout and family conflict. Prevention: refusal skills, accurate information, parental and community support, and enforcement of age restrictions on sales.
Worked example
Plan a low-cost day for a learner: maize porridge with groundnuts at breakfast; nsima, beans and greens at lunch; fruit as a snack; small fish and vegetables at supper. The reasoning: each meal combines an energy food with a body-building food and a protective food, and uses affordable local items.
Traps
- Equating "expensive" with "nutritious".
- Listing only one food group in a meal plan.
- Treating substance use as a moral failing only, ignoring addiction as a health condition.
- Forgetting that alcohol and tobacco are legal but still harmful.