A Salt Reduction/Healthy Eating Campaign to Observe World Hypertension Day

Measure Your Blood Pressure Accurately, Control It, Live Longer” – it’s the theme for this year’s World Hypertension Day, which is observed annually on May seventeenth.  In an effort to raise awareness and promote hypertension prevention, detection and control, the Ministry of Health and Wellness is continuing with its Salt Reduction/Healthy Eating Campaign.  Nutritionist Robyn Daly says that they are trying to educate cooks and food vendors on the dangers of excessive sodium use and to promote healthy cooking options. 

Robyn Daly

Robyn Daly, Nutritionist, Ministry of Health & Wellness

“This year we are just advocating for persons to reduce sodium intake in particular and to highlight the dangers of having high blood pressure and also what can cause high blood pressure. So today, we did some test with public officers and we will continue our campaign that we had started last year. So last year, we started on a salt reduction healthy eating campaign – it’s a collaborative effort that we started with the public health unit for their food handlers certification program. So what we did was a twenty-minute health talk to vendors and we would ask them question afterwards. So it was like a nutrition presentation about healthy eating, cooking foods with less sodium and how they could improve the nutrition content of their food.”