Embrace healthy lifestyle for your children, parents urged

 

Parents have been urged to adopt a healthy lifestyle for their children by feeding them with indigenous foods.

Speaking during a food fest for children between the ages of three to 12, Lion’s International Club’s Charles Macharia  said contrary to the yester years , lifestyle-related diseases have increased due to a bad diet .

“Parents have a huge responsibility in setting the precedence on what their children feed. Unfortunately, modern day parents lack the ability to distinguish what food is nutritious from what is not, an action that has cost them dearly towards achieving a healthy lifestyle for their children,” Macharia said.

Horticulture farming, he said, tops the list in producing disease-resultant foods due to a huge amount of farm chemical use contrary to indigenous crops that add value to the body.

Macharia urged Kenyans to eat indigenous foods to keep Covid-19 at bay as they are rich in content necessary to boost their immunities

“Let’s eat good food as the real medicine, and not medicine as healthy food plays a big role in fighting viruses.It is for that sake that we also are appealing to the government to launch a crackdown on the sale of genetically modified seeds set to be grown for human consumption,” Macharia said.

During the national fest that was organised by the club in Kirinyaga, children were treated to a variety of the Agikuyu cuisines which included among others the traditional fermented porridge (Ucuru wa Mukio), ngunja gutu, ‘mataha’ and honey.

Macharia said the function dubbed as the ‘slow food event’ is celebrated internationally tracing its origin in Turin, Italy to promote cultural indigenous foods.

Lucy Gachoki, a local member of the club, hailed the project saying it will help sustain the rich traditional foods.