24 March 2014 – International Medical University (IMU)’s Semester 6 Nutrition and Dietetics students organised the IMU Nutrition Week 2014 with the aim of bringing awareness on food safety among the IMU community. The theme of this year’s event was “Food Safety: Safe Food Saves Life”.
The event was launched on 24 March by IMU’s President, YBhg Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman. A number of activities were planned. The activities were conducted across the week with different sub-themes each day. The sub-themes were Shopping safely, Food safety at home, Food Safety away from home, Food safety for high risk groupsand Additives in food. The activities during the week comprised of games, talks, video shows, posters, messages on food safety in and around the campus, demonstrations, quizzes, practical tips regarding food safety, handling emergency situations at home pertaining to food preparation and handling, and food sales. A hand-washing competition was also conducted for the IMU cafeteria workers to reiterate proper hand-washing techniques.
 |
 |
|---|
The Nutrition and Dietetic students who were involved in putting together these activities enjoyed promoting Food Safety in the campus. They expressed that such activities not only gave them a good exposure to health promotion but also encouraged teamwork. They commented that students from the other IMU programmes were very surprised to learn about some common misconceptions that they had about food safety. They took a very special interest in the theme “Food Safety Away from Home”. Since most of the students and staff purchase at least 1-2 meals from outside of their home, they were interested to learn about the health outcomes if the food has not been appropriately handled.
 |
 |
|---|
 |
 |
|---|
Staff was also very impressed with the information on food safety that was available during the week. They appreciated the students’ presentations on food safety. They also congratulated the students for translating the scientific evidence pertaining to food safety into action. The week came to an end with the prizes distributed to all the winners in the various activities conducted throughout the week.
