The recently held Protein Challenge Webinar 6 was targeted at making the case for a protein-centred national nutrition policy, which would in turn curtail the rising incidence of protein deficiency and general malnutrition across the country.

Put together by Mediacraft Associates Limited, the webinar, which was the sixth in the series, sought to draw the federal government’s attention to the urgent need for a protein-centred national nutrition policy in Nigeria.

Themed: “The case for a protein-centred National Nutrition policy”, the webinar was also targeted at initiating conversations amongst stakeholders in the health/nutrition sector, around the essential features and elements that such a national policy should cover; inspire a conversation and promote strategies that would help alleviate protein deficiency, with emphasis on protein-rich local food sources.

During the webinar, nutrition experts stressed the need for the nutrition policy, stating that such a policy would guarantee and produce sound leaders that the country would be proud of. The Lead Speaker, Dr. Adepeju Adeniran, public health expert and co-founder and national chairperson, Women in Global Health, Nigeria, stated that: “there is a need for concerted efforts towards ensuring that the entire population enjoys a measure of good health.”

She listed key factors responsible for protein consumption habits in Nigeria to include the availability and affordability of food sources, taste of the food, knowledge of its nutrition value and personal choice, or preference, of the buyer.

According to her, data extracted from the Nigerian Protein Deficiency Survey reports 2019 showed that about 51 per cent of the survey respondents did not have access to protein-rich foods because of cost, adding that those most affected by protein deficiency are children, women of childbearing age, the elderly and the immune-compromised, without adequacy of protein in their diet.

Expanding on the Nigerian palate, she said population malnutrition and undernourishment in Nigeria can be demonstrated from the successive national surveys done on both the adult and children population, noting that protein deficiency was responsible for both stunting, chronic anaemia and protein energy malnutrition figures in adult females. This Day