People: Health Fair in La Paz

The first sight I encountered during my visit to La Paz, Bolivia was a health fair being held in the heart of downtown at Plaza San Francisco. I learned that the fair was in conjunction with the ‘Day of the Disabled’ and events on a large outdoor stage were targeted at raising awareness for the handicapped community. There were handicrafts being made and sold by disabled people, as well as a variety of booths run by organizations providing handouts and basic health information. The groups represented were a mixture of government ministries, NGOs, as well as some private businesses, and I spent some time wandering among the booths trying to understand what I could about each of their specific focus areas.

I spent the most time at a booth dedicated to promoting nutrition information and education on micro-nutrients. The “Food Arc” that you see in the photo above is Bolivia’s answer to the Food Pyramid that we are familiar with in the United States. As with the USDA’s Pyramid, the Bolivian Food Arc and accompanying list of nutritional guidelines contained some questionable if not outdated advice and also falls prey to the same problem of being too abstract for most people to incorporate into their daily lives. Though I find it easier to live by general principles for a healthy diet, some of the better diagrams I’ve come across are the Harvard School of Public Health’s “Healthy Plate” model and the Bauman College “Eating for Health” model (images courtesy of their websites):

Another nutrition booth was offering free baby formula for infants and young children between ages 6-23 months to complement breastfeeding. The product was authorized by the Ministry of Health and Sports, and claimed to provide supplementation of vitamins and minerals including iron, folic acid, vitamins A and C, and zinc. A different booth was offering free tuberculosis screenings and treatment, and provided information on how TB is transmitted, detecting symptoms, and ways to avoid catching or spreading the disease.

The Health Fair had a good turn-out, with many families in attendance and people seemingly very receptive to the information being disbursed. My main complaint about the whole affair was the fact that despite the focus on healthy living, there was not a single food item for sale that could be qualified as nutritious. Everywhere you turned there were booths selling sugary pastries, cakes, doughnuts, ice cream cones, and deep-fried snacks. It was disappointing to see the disconnection between what people are told they should consume and what is actually being eaten at a place that people go to seek guidance about healthy choices. My non-professional assessment is that Bolivia still has a ways to go in terms of nutritional awareness, but it’s important that the government is making an effort and that there are organizations trying to increase the visibility of these issues in a country where there is limited access to education and health resources.