Strategies
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Strategies

Strategies / Policies
A Healthy Weight for Life: A National Strategy for Malta 2012-2020
The Health Weigh for Life: A National Strategy for Malta 2012 – 2020 seeks to address the many challenges we are experiencing to maintain a healthy weight across the population. It aims to halt the rising overweight and obesity rates and eventually to decrease the number of people suffering from this condition, subsequently reducing morbidity and mortality from related conditions and healthcare and productivity costs and aiming towards an improved quality of life. In order to promote healthy eating, a number of  priority areas for action were identified, these include among others: (i) to improve the availability and uptake of a healthy diet by the Maltese population through healthy public policies across Government; (ii) to promote exclusive breast feeding for the first six months of life and to continue breastfeeding in the first years of life; (iii) to support schools and families so that meals and snacks, including drinks, prepared for school aged children are nutritious and appetising, without being energy-dense and/or containing excess amounts of fats, trans-fatty acids, salt and sugar; (iv) to support schools to implement the recommendations of the Whole School Approach to a Healthy Lifestyle: Healthy Eating and Physical Activity and to strengthen the Personal and Social Development (PSD) and Home Economics curricula as related to nutrition and healthy choices. In order to promote physical activity, the following priority areas for action identified included amongst others: (a) to increase physical activity through healthy public policies, so that the living environment is one that promotes healthy choices; (b) to implement the recommendation of three hours of physical activity weekly for all schoolchildren; (c) to support Local Councils to increase the opportunities available for physical activity, including the use of legislation and enforcement to improve safety on the roads, availability of open spaces and increase walkability in built-up areas.
A Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Disease in Malta – 2010
A Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Disease in Malta, in line with the Health Ministry’s main objective and strategic directions in improving health and the quality of life in the Maltese population, adopts a mutifactorial approach to NCD prevention, reduction and control through tackling common risk factors targeting both population-level and high-risk groups. The risk factors addressed in the Strategy include: unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, tobacco, alcohol, obesity, raised Blood Sugar, raised blood pressure and raised serum lipids. The noncommunicable diseases targeted include Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Musculoskeletal, Cancer and Mental Illness. The action plan reflects multi-sectorial and multidisciplinary approaches.
A Whole School Approach to A Healthy Lifestyle: Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Policy - 2015
A Whole School Approach to A Healthy Lifestyle: Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Policy aims to promote healthy eating and physical activity in the whole school community. The Policy takes a two-pronged approach – the promotion of healthy eating, and the promotion of physical activity – and gives high priority to these two themes through holistic education; it strengthens the necessary framework and supports an enabling school environment to help the whole school community to adopt healthier patterns of living by encouraging physical activity; it promotes healthy foods and limits the availability of products high in salt, sugar and fats; it empowers children to achieve the required physical and health literacy, to adopt a healthy lifestyle from an early age and to make informed choices about their lifestyles throughout the life course; it makes provision for a flexible curriculum which highlights health, nutrition, food safety and hygiene and food preparation, and promotes physical activity; and it ensure that clear and consistent messages about food, drink and physical activity are delivered across the school day.
Communicable Disease Control Strategy for Malta 2013
The National Communicable Diseases Control Strategy sets out to describe the scope and nature of the threat posed by infectious diseases to the health of the population of Malta and establish the priorities for action to combat the present as well as possible future threat posed by infectious diseases. The Strategy emphasises the need for the co-ordination of national surveillance for the planning and prioritisation of interventions, the optimal use of laboratory science in communicable disease management and the availability of an effective response capacity for outbreaks of national significance.
Food and Nutrition Policy and Action Plan for Malta 2015 - 2020
The National Food and Nutrition Policy and Action Plan, developed by an intersectoral working group, set out to identify priority action areas in order to address the main public health challenges facing the Maltese Nation in the area of nutrition and food security. A whole-of-government and the whole of society approach has been taken in order to effectively coordinate policies and actions in other non-health sectors that could have an impact on health. The Policy and Action Plan takes an across the life-span approach starting from pregnancy to old age. This Policy and Action Plan complements the Healthy Weight for Life Strategy (2012), the National Cancer Plan (2011), and the Noncommunicable Disease Control Strategy for Malta (2011) which all include a focus on improving dietary habits in order to maximise health and well-being.

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