Faculty of Community & Health Sciences P r o f e s s o r r i n a s wa r t t o P ac h i e v e r
Balancing life and work during lockdown proved challenging PROFESSOR Rina Swart has worked in the area of public health hold help, I found that household chores (cleaning, cooking, launnutrition since 1986. Her background training is in dietetics, and dry and gardening) took up a disproportionate amount of time her areas of interest are the policies and programmes that ad- compared to pre-Covid. Even though I was used to being actively dress malnutrition in all its forms — be it undernutrition, obesity involved in these over weekends, there was now much more to do on a daily basis. or micronutrient malnutrition. When thinking about the effect of the pandemic on women, she “I can just imagine that for women in academia who have younger children, that it would have been even more challenging. The says: “The answer to this question lies in the nature of the balance between life and work took a bit of a knock. household and pre-Covid responsibilities and inter“If I am honest, I have to say that I did not, and ests. My understanding is that the majority of still do not manage this well at all. My chilhouseholds in South Africa are either fedren say that my work is also my hobby, male-headed or have a traditional role so I often end up working all hours. allocation. In these households, I do The only thing that changes is my think women in academia would setting — sometimes it will be in have been disproportionately afthe bedroom, sometimes in the fected by the pandemic. Where lounge. I know it is unhealthy the nature of households difand found it difficult to manfers from the majority, there age pre-lockdown. Lockmay be a different experidown made this worse.” ence — for example, in a Looking ahead, Prof Swart single parent male-headed is working hard on planning household.” for a National Dietary InHer pandemic experience take study that is supposed was as caregiver to three to go into the field in July young adult males, her 2021. The tender for this was sons, who returned home awarded during lockdown in during this time and happily 2020. Logistically, it is a chalregressed to the “traditional” lenging project. role of children in the house. “My collaborators are HODs of “It was hard work to keep them Dietetics and Nutrition from 11 uniengaged in household chores. Alversities in the country — and to date, though I am partly to blame for taking all our planning had to be done virtually. on more than what was necessary. The nature of the data requires measure“The online learning environment was new ment of people to determine nutritional status, for them and all of them worked really hard, so as well as interviews to quantify the the mother with a soft heart tended to “The balance between life and food people eat daily. This means that occasionally spoil them by washing the dishes or doing the laundry when it was work took a bit of a knock. If I am hon- data collection needs to be done facetheir turn. est, I have to say that I did not, and still to-face. The third wave of Covid and delays in vaccination are therefore a “Especially during the early lockdown do not manage this well at all.” significant challenge.” period and the absence of any house-
