Background:
The Instituto de Investigación Nutricional (IIN) is a Peruvian non profit civil organization founded in 1972 with the objective of undertaking research in health and nutrition that will contribute to improve the quality of life of the least favoured populations of Peru and the rest of the world.
The IIN and 5 a day:
About 8 years ago, Dr Fernando Pérez started “5 a day” in Peru at the IIN. He formed a group of interested institutions and businesses and organized a competition that resulted in the current logo that is registered with the Peruvian Patent agency in the name of IIN. Despite all the initiatives and work it was not possible to obtain funds to continue the “5 a day” program and when Dr Perez left the IIN there followed a period with very little activity. Laura Astete, a nutritionist at IIN, and now a teacher at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC), in Lima took up the theme and is developing plans to reactivate the “5 a day” initiative in Peru. This includes maintaining the “5 a day” platform currently in Facebook on the IIN web site, broadening the content and reaching out to other social media, and reactivating the network of members and alliances. As well, Laura plans to take advantage of her post at the university that allows her to link the activities that are required of students in some of their courses, for instance nutrition education, public health, and others, to start again the activities related to “5 a day”.
On the other hand other researchers at IIN have been developing projects to improve the diets of low income families including increasing their consumption of fruit and vegetables, for example through kitchen gardens.
Contact and further information https://www.iin.sld.pe/5-al-dia-peru/