Ifpri short video contest: school garden and healthy cooking program targets the double burden of malnutrition in mexico

irst in a series of guest posts by winners of IFPRI’s My Food, Our Future short video contest for young people. Read the second here.

In Mexico and other developing countries, hunger and the double burden of malnutrition are severe public health problems. In 2018, the lack of food affected about 25.5 million people in Mexico; food insecurity is linked to low academic results, poor conduct, and difficulties with mental health in young people.

Yet adolescence is also a period of rapid personal evolution and a key window of opportunity to change and modify lifestyle habits. As part of our thesis in the nutrition program at the University of Monterrey, our advisor Ana Carla Cepeda gave us the idea of implementing a school garden and a healthy cooking program specifically targeting adolescents as a strategy for addressing this problem.