People in disadvantaged situations consume less fruit and vegetables and suffer more often from obesity.

People with problematic debts are helped in eliminating them. To teach people how to avoid debt in the future, the Integrated Debt Assistance Team obliges its clients to follow a budgeting course "Making ends meet with your income". The sixth and seventh meetings of this course are entitled "Proper nutrition need not cost much". It is common knowledge that people with a lower educational level and a low income consume very little fruit and vegetables. At the same time, there is also more obesity in these groups. Hartslag Limburg shows the participants in the budgeting course in a concrete way that one can also eat healthily on a limited budget.

During the 2.5-hour meeting, a dietician gives the course members information about healthy nutrition in general (more fruit and vegetables and particularly less fat) and demonstrates how one can buy and cook  food inexpensively and healthily. In addition to this meeting, the course members go on a one hour supermarket tour, in which, among other things, it is explained how to read labels and how to compare various branded products with own-brand products with regard to price and quality.

Started in 2001, the course "Making ends meet with your income" has currently been held 38 times in Maastricht. Each course has on average of ten participants. An evaluation took place after five courses. This showed that 80% of the participants indicated that they had heard a lot of interesting information during the nutrition meetings. 93% of them said this about the supermarket tour. 61% of the participants also indicated that they had been encouraged to start eating more healthily. In response to the supermarket tour, 82% indicated that they had been encouraged to start eating more healthily. It has been agreed that the course meeting "Proper nutrition need not cost much" will become a permanent part of the course "Making ends meet with your income".

GGD ZZ-Limburg
M. Steenbakkers, tel. +31 43 3821789

01/01/2001

case

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Quality of life

Health