Overview

This lesson is about the importance of eating foods that provide essential vitamins and minerals for proper growth and development and to help prevent disease. It explains that our bodies require many different vitamins and minerals, each of which has a specific function in the body and must be supplied in different, sufficient amounts. Vitamins and minerals are discussed separately and can be studied in two different sessions. The lesson describes the essential vitamins and minerals, their functions and good food sources. It pays special attention to those vitamins and minerals that are most likely to cause serious health problems when people do not get enough of them from their food: vitamins A, D, C, the B-complex vitamins and folate and the minerals calcium, iron, iodine and zinc.

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• name and describe the essential vitamins and minerals and their main functions in the body
• identify locally available foods that are good sources of each of the essential vitamins and minerals
• assess the amount and variety of vitamins and minerals in your diet

  Lesson Structure

Lesson 2 is divided in two parts:

• Part 1: Vitamins - their functions and good food sources
• Part 2: Minerals - their functions and good food sources

Download full Lesson 5 (4.6Mb)