KAUST Hosts Well-being Workshops for Women of Thuwal & Qadimah

Two health and well-being workshops were hosted on November 22nd and 29th 2017 at KAUST, delivered by Amna Malik, the clinical dietician based at KAUST Health, with the support of four nutritionists from Dr Soliman Fakeeh Hospital. Female residents of Thuwal and Qadimah were invited, with a total of 70 attendees attending the two workshops.

A collaboration between Social Responsibility and KAUST Health, the sessions aimed to offer healthy eating advice in an engaging and interactive format, encouraging the women to develop increased self-awareness around eating and nutrition habits for themselves and their families.

Topics included meal planning, the benefits of a balanced diet, guidance on healthy cooking methods as well as the challenges of dealing with and cooking for food allergies, intolerances and dietary restrictions. On arrival the women were divided into four groups and took part in activities and discussions, led by a nutritionist, at each of the four stations – Basic Food & Nutrition Information; Food Preparation, Presentation & Storage; Social Eating; and Preparing Food for Restricted Diets.

Several of the women are catering for diabetic needs for themselves or their families, and found the advice relevant and useful. Although some conditions require certain foods to be eliminated from the diet, the nutritionists were able to demonstrate that a restricted diet can be far wider and varied than perhaps imagined, and perceived challenges can be relatively easily overcome with a little planning.

As well as enjoying a healthy buffet and drinks, the delegates were able to take away with them a number of useful booklets and handouts, with meal planning suggestions and dietary guidance as well as a ‘healthy eating plate’ – an ingenious invention created by nutrition experts at Harvard School of Public Health that illustrates relative proportions of each of the food groups to include on your plate.

Ms Malik was impressed by the enthusiasm of the attendees, “There was an excellent rapport among the visitors and dietitians, and in particular they were asking for more awareness programs like cooking and training. A lot of questions were raised and discussed.”

Social Responsibility would like to thank Amna Malik and the KAUST Health Team for the stimulating and informative workshops. Joint ventures such as this enable the Social Responsibility team to channel the knowledge and expertise from departments across KAUST to targeted beneficiaries in Thuwal and Qadimah.



Part of the Community Program - read the Program Overview here.

November 30, 2017