Who Isn’t Getting Enough? It’s World Iron Awareness Week

Who Isn’t Getting Enough? It’s World Iron Awareness Week: 26 August - 1 September

Save the date – World Iron Awareness Week is taking place this year during the week commencing 26th August 2019.

So what?

A lack of dietary iron is the world’s most prevalent nutrient deficiency. In New Zealand the picture doesn’t look much better – one in 14 adult women over 15 years old are low in iron, 8 out of 10 toddlers don’t meet their daily iron requirement and over a third of teenage girls aged 15-18 years do not achieve their daily iron requirements. This is having a huge financial impact on our healthcare systems. According to figures from the Ministry of Health, the cost of hospitalisations – primarily due to iron deficiency anaemia – has risen from an annual $3.2 million to $6.7m over the past 10 years, with the MOH spending close to $20m for treatment over the past three years(1).

Symptoms are often overlooked and filed in the ‘busy life’ folder. Ever felt totally exhausted? Do you constantly get colds and infections? Find it difficult to keep focused at work or do your kids struggle to concentrate at school? It could be as simple as a lack of iron in the diet.

These symptoms and much of this growing nutritional epidemic we are facing can be prevented by some small amends to the foods and drinks we enjoy to ensure we are getting the most from our sustenance and feeling top of our game.

World Iron Awareness Week will shed light on this easily ignored and often under reported health issue. We have loads of exciting initiatives which we will be updating you on in due course but wanted to ensure you have the dates in your diaries.

In the meantime, check out www.ironweek.co.nz for some imagery and useful infographics.

ends

© Scoop Media