Select a region
A local nutritionist is confident that we can “turn corona on its head” and emerge from this crisis as “strong and healthy individuals."
The suggestion came from Beau Waugh, a registered nutritionist and founder of Pinpoint Nutrition in Jersey, in his latest column for Express...
"During these unprecedented times, it’s become more important than ever to support our neighbours, to engage with our community and to deploy self-care strategies that will help us to remain resilient, strong and well-equipped to deal with the daily developments being thrown our way.
Although we will each be facing our individual challenges, the recent weeks have shown that community spirit is strong; with solo heroes rallying the troops, small businesses and charities working tirelessly to feed the vulnerable and the more established pillars of our community stepping in to make their impact. If anything, these times are illuminating how lucky we are to be part of such a caring and close-knit community and we will no doubt leave the other side with a deeper sense of connection and gratitude toward our little island ecosystem.
Pictured: "We have more control than ever over how we approach our nutritional health."
Amidst the uncertainty, one thing is for sure; our health, above all, must take priority, and in some ways, we may have found ourselves in the perfect position to grab it with both hands. One of the challenges to eating healthily for example, is to find practical solutions that help us navigate effectively through our food landscapes and be able to discern which, if any, outlets will cater for our nutritional needs. Now that our reliance upon external food providers has to a large extent been stripped, we have more control than ever over how we approach our nutritional health.
Pictured: Beau Waugh suggests using this time to cultivate children’s sense of what food means to them.
With a narrowed focus towards our fridges, pantries and store cupboards for sustenance, we should view this as a perfect chance to reconnect with food, upskill and to embed the very habits and behaviours that will arm us with the energy, knowledge and skills to approach post-corona with new-found vitality. Not only should we see this as an opportunity to hit the reset button on our health as individuals, but why not use this close-proximity to cultivate our children’s sense of what food means to them, allowing them to get their hands dirty and to explore their taste buds in the process?
Science clearly tells us that the food-habits we are exposed to in the home as children will to a large extent shape our attitudes toward food for years to come and that downstream health implications can be significant. While it’s true we are in a sense temporarily "disconnected" from the outside world, taking the time to bridge the disconnect between our children's sense of how their food is sourced, prepared and served could surely pay dividends down the line.
Pictured: Despite needing to exercise in our living rooms, we can come out of this crisis as "strong and healthy individuals."
As the great Benjamin Franklin once said, “out of adversity comes opportunity” and, in the context of health and isolation, this seems more apt than ever.
Let’s make the most of this opportunity to tend to the domains of health that we may so often neglect, turn corona on its head and come out the other side as strong and healthy individuals and as a cohesive community, which at one point in time, needed to exercise in their living rooms, monitor their sleep a little better, read real books instead of Facebook and who allowed their kids to run amuck in the kitchen.
Let’s do what we can, where we are with what we have, and come out the other side better and stronger for it."
