菲律賓‧校園種菜運動
（菲律賓）為了抗衡美式垃圾食品文化引發的社會健康問題，菲律賓正逐步將國內小學校園空地轉變為菜園，讓學生們在那裡耕種。
在馬尼拉健康食物計劃下的其中一間模範學校，教師、學生和家長們正攜手在園地裡耕作。這裡種著各式各樣的蔬菜。
每一吋可利用的土地，都被用來種植季節性新鮮蔬菜，為貧窮學生提供免費的食物，同時也可以賣出去賺錢。
在沒有泥土的地方，師生們就改用水耕種植法，將廢棄的塑膠瓶當作盛水的器皿，一排排整齊地種上蔬菜。
現年65歲的帕拉那奇（Paranaque）中央小學校長伊迪塔．巴格加彥（Edita Baggayan）在視察溫室內的番茄時向記者透露：“只要有那麼一點點的創意和想像力，沒有什麼是辦不到的！”
“這裡的小朋友們都被教以均衡的飲食概念，而且我們也鼓勵家長參與這項計劃，因為我們希望學生的家人都能遠離不健康的飲食習慣。”
在一旁，一群穿著卡其褲的男生正忙著除草和為即將收成的茄子、羊角豆和辣木葉澆水。
那裡還種有一整排的包菜、絲瓜和冬瓜，這些傳統的食材在外賣和速食食品氾濫的情況下已逐漸被菲律賓人所拋棄。
巴格加彥說，花椰菜上一季收成了，不過下個學期又會開始種植。
記者探訪時正值午餐時間，學生們狼吞虎咽地將雞肉蔬菜湯喝光，一些甚至還想要來第二碗呢！
校內營養師兼廚師達爾西．阿蘭達（Dulce Aranda）說，這項計劃所帶來的影響，都在預料之中。
她說，去年開始實行這項計劃時，他們從3000名學生當中選出100位最缺營養的學生，讓他們吃校園內栽種的蔬菜。
阿蘭達說：“結果顯示，這100名孩子如今變得更健康，上課更專注，功課也有所進步。我們希望他們長大後也能像現在這樣，畢竟有太多的人健康狀況並不理想。”
比起美國，快餐店在菲律賓更是無所不在。菲律賓自1898年起被美國統治了大半個世紀。本土速食店在菲國大受歡迎，就連偏遠的鄉鎮也可以找到，而美國快餐店也同樣普遍。
雖然白飯依然是菲律賓人的主糧，但如今餐桌上的食物很多卻是油膩和煎炸的。
結果，高血壓和糖尿病大肆侵略菲國的成年人口，特別是20至40歲這個年齡層，無形中為製藥業帶來豐厚的收入。
法國製藥商賽諾菲．安萬特（Sanofi Aventis）菲律賓分公司醫療主任卡梅拉．帕古恩山醫生（Carmela Pagunsan）受訪時指出：“如今我們吃的都是快餐或是加工食物。”
“我們有不良的飲食習慣，缺乏適量的運動。家長和小孩都不願出門做運動，也不愛吃蔬菜和水果。如果你到購物商場去，你將會看到不少超重的小孩和年輕人。他們不懂得照顧身體，更不懂正當的飲食習慣。”
她說，菲國的飲食文化間接造就了這個問題，因為國人太過愛吃鹹、甜和油膩的食物，特別是在過年過節的時候。
政府於2009年進行的國民營養調查顯示，菲國27%成年人超重，25%國民面對高血壓問題。
帕古恩山說：“我認為這個數據嚴重被低估，因為有很多人根本不知道本身患有高血壓，他們不去看醫生也不吃藥。由於他們不知道自己有病，因此不覺得有需要改變自己的生活和飲食習慣；殊不知併發症已俏俏入侵他們的身體。”
她的公司在當地市場售賣5種降血壓藥物，還有專治糖尿的口服藥物和胰島素注射。
帕古恩山說：“高血壓藥物市場仍在擴大。”她補充，國內越來越多企業申請降壓藥物專利。
教育局於去年推行這項蔬菜計劃，並希望能複製帕拉那奇中央小學和其他學校的成功案例，催生健康意識提昇的菲律賓新生代。
帕古恩山覺得這項校園種菜計劃是可取的，但要改變菲律賓人的思想著實不易。
她說：“民眾對問題的醒覺度僅介於中低水平。他們一般上意識到這個問題，但卻未作出具體的行動。”（原文：法新社）
以上擷取自: http://www.mediachinese.com/node/23638?tid=25英文版如下:
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Green schools combat bad diets in Philippines
2011-01-16 13:59
By Jason Gutierrez
MANILA, Sunday 16 January 2011 (AFP) - The Philippines is transforming primary school yards into vegetable gardens in a bid to fight US-inspired junk food addictions that are causing an explosion of health problems throughout society.
At one of the showcase schools in Manila for the burgeoning health food project, teachers and students are joined by parents in tending lush plots that have an assortment of vegetables.
Every available space is used to grow nutritious greens that are harvested in cycles -- as free food for the school's mostly poor students or sold as part of a livelihood project for their families.
Where there is no soil, portable hydroponic gardening is promoted using discarded plastic bottles as water receptacles for plants that hang symmetrically in rows.
"It's amazing what many things you can do with a little innovation, and a little bit of imagination," Paranaque Central Elementary School principal Edita Baggayan, 65, told AFP while inspecting some tomatoes in a mini-greenhouse.
"Children here are taught proper nutrition, and we involve parents in the project because we want to take families away from a lifestyle of eating junk foods."
Nearby, boys in khaki trousers are busy removing weeds and watering the upcoming harvest of thick green okras, eggplants and moringa leaves.
There is a row of cabbages, vines with budding luffa fruits and winter melons that are typically used in a variety of traditional Filipino dishes that are fast vanishing from dining tables in favour of take out and instant foods.
Broccoli and cauliflower were last season's harvests, but they will be grown again in the second semester, Baggayan said.
During AFP's visit, students hungrily tucked into their chicken-vegetable soup at lunchtime, with some going back for second servings.
School nutritionist and cook Dulce Aranda said the programme was having measurable impacts.
She said 100 of the most undernourished children among the roughly 3,000 students were picked for a feeding programme using the harvested vegetables when the initiative was launched last year.
"Our charts now show they are more healthy, attentive and are performing better in school," Aranda said.
"We just hope they will carry this through when they grow up. There are just too many people who are unhealthy," Aranda said.
Fast-food outlets are perhaps even more ubiquitous in the Philippines than in the United States, which ruled the Southeast Asian nation as a colonial power for nearly 50 years from 1898.
The Philippines has a wildly popular home-grown fast-food chain that has outlets even in remote towns, while the famous US brands are also widespread.
In homes, rice remains a staple for most meals but accompanying dishes are typically fried and heavy in oil.
As a result, lifestyle diseases such as hypertension and diabetes are ravaging the adult population, especially people aged in their 20s to 40s, leading to a bonanza for pharmaceutical firms.
"Everything now is fast or processed food," said doctor Carmela Pagunsan, medical director at the Manila unit of French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi Aventis.
"We have bad eating diets and sedentary lifestyles. Parents and their children don't go out and do physical activity anymore, don't eat vegetables and fruits.
"If you go to the malls now, you will see many overweight children and young adults. They have not been trained to be fit, to have proper diets."
She said the problem was also cultural in nature, with Filipinos having a propensity to over indulge in salty, fatty and very sweet foods, particularly during festivals and celebrations.
The government's National Nutrition Survey in 2009 showed that 27 percent of adults were overweight, while 25 percent reported having hypertension.
"That is a gross under-estimation in my view," Pagunsan said. "Because there are many more people out there who don't know they are hypertensive, who don't get the medicines they need and who don't see a doctor for consultation.
"And because they go undiagnosed, they do not have any compulsion to control their lifestyles, not knowing that complications are already setting in."
She said her company alone marketed five anti-hypertension medicines locally, while also selling oral medication and insulin injections for diabetes.
"The hypertension market is still growing," Pagunsan said, adding that the number of applications for patents covering generic hypertensive drugs in the Philippines was on the rise.
The education department launched the vegetable project last year, and it hopes to replicate the success of the Paranaque school and others in Manila nationwide to produce a new generation of health conscious Filipinos.
Pagunsan said the vegetable project was commendable, but noted it may take a lot more to change the Filipinos' mindset.
"The public's awareness of the problem is in the spectrum of between low and medium. They are generally aware, but they don't do something about it," she said.
以上擷取自: http://www.mysinchew.com/node/51495
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