Healthy Diets

I am pleased to submit this contribution to the NFBPWC Magazine regarding Healthy diets and to write it on School Meals Day, which is celebrated annually on the second Thursday of March and which in 2026 was chosen on March 12th. This is an opportunity to invite organizations and individuals to unite in promoting nutritious meals for all students worldwide.

Increasingly, the guidelines of many international organizations, including the WHO and FAO, include recommendations for orienting the consumption of natural foods and diets low in ultra-processed products. Eating a variety of foods allows for a balanced intake of vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, and fats (the recipe would be 45-60% carbohydrates; 20-35% fats; 10-20% proteins; and drinking 1.5 to 2 liters of water).

Recommended healthy diets include the Mediterranean Diet (olive oil, fruits and vegetables, fish, and grains), the DASH Diet (low-salt, high-vegetable diet to combat hypertension), and the Vegetarian Diet (excluding meat and fish but including dairy products and eggs).

Today, these recommendations are more important than ever to advance the importance of supporting healthy diets in schools and in vulnerable and conflict-affected areas.

Diets and Women

A healthy diet is a balanced diet model that provides the body with the necessary nutrients. Adopting a healthy diet means getting into the habit of choosing foods and cus-toms to maintain good health. And the contribution made by and for women, from the very young age must be studied, valued, and disseminated.

BPW International, with all its affiliated  federations, has a long history of active advocacy, working increasingly toward an integrated approach to health and education, starting with agriculture. This approach allows for the integration and evaluation of social policies (procurement farming, local and organic agricultural supplies) with education at various levels (gardening, cooking, food preservation, trade), and the need that this occurs through active community partnerships.

Healthy diet from the women’s point of view starts when you can choose which foods to buy, knowing what is available in the refrigerator, in the pantry. Is a habit that contributes to shaping eating habits but is also a way of taking care of oneself and one's family. Prevention, savings and sustainability come into play.

Nowadays, transforming food systems requires that human empowerment, especially that of women, be incorporated into project design from the outset, not just through volunteering or temporary staff in programs.

Good professional training enables the implementation and coordination of strategies that unify agriculture, healthcare, and social policy across all countries.

Increasing education for girls and women, who can learn how to choose and prepare foods while promoting traditional recipes, leads in the medium term to the creation of lifelong habits that are beneficial for people and nature.

Well-designed school meal programs, combined with general nutrition education, represent a positive element and a reliable source of socially beneficial change.

Children and students in general understand the message perfectly, and with them the community; they waste less, while local farmers also enjoy a stable market. The same is true for policies (local or national) to reduce healthcare costs associated with diet-related diseases.

Achieving good results obviously requires investments in public infrastructure, improved public transport, water, sanitation, and energy sustainability, to reduce the time women and girls in difficult contexts must spend on the daily routine of household chores.

With investments and strategies across agriculture, health, and social policies, lasting habits and harmonious coexistence are built and achieved.

(see our BPW International Triennium theme)

The successes of the School Meals programs adopted are shared in 22 European countries. Since 2009, FAO has a Unit that examines and promotes coordination between the School Food and Nutrition approach, which is directly linked to the Agency's strategic objectives and the 2030 Agenda.

To conclude this brief contribution to stimulate the interest of NFBPWC sisters and friends, I would like to mention the success of a program created in Bhutan, launched between the government and FAO in 2025, called One Child - One Egg, which has reached 343 schools. It also represents a vital contribution to social protection.

The inclusion of one egg a day in students' meals (in this case several thousand) provides an important, low-cost nutritional supplement, to the satisfaction of suppliers and local communities, considering that school lunch in many parts of the world, and in such a challenging time of conflict and environmental crises, is the only healthy food students receive each day.

To learn more:

FAO School Food and Nutrition Framework https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/6f3162ea-1c1f-4699-a4b1-59a041e5f113/content

One Child -One egg Bhutan https://fb.watch/FTX-jS2eVs/

Christina Gorajski Visconti
IFBPW Standing Committee Chair Agriculture
2024-2027
bpwagriculture@gmail.com