Nutrition Talk

1 2 2 0 g n p ai am C h l t a e H c i l b u P N U T R I T I O N T A L K

W O R D S B Y T O N G H U I Q I

ver wondered how much salt is in your food? Or perhaps you ’re (more strategies to completely in of our efforts E or less) aware, but can’t make head or tail of reduce your salt intake? Maybe… you ’re the dark about the harms of salt overload! As part to educate university students and the wider public alike about the primary culprit of an awfully prevalent yet silent disease, PharmNotts held a nutrition talk about the importance of monitoring and regulating sodium intake as well as practical ways to cut down on salt without compromising exciting flavours.

At the start of the session, the audience was shown an ASMR mukbang video that was sure to have tickled their tastebuds and made their stomach growl had they not already had lunch. As the oppa in the video slurped on the sauce-drenched instant noodles and chomped down on the crisp, Cheetoscoated Korean rice cakes, one could only imagine the mouth-watering torment going on behind the laptop screens of the attendees.

Following that, the floor was passed to our speaker for the day – Dr Goh Ee Von, a public health nutritionist who also works as a part-time lecturer within the School of Biosciences at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. For the next 20odd minutes, Dr Goh shared with us her findings from a paper investigating the reasoning behind the act of watching mukbang videos and subsequently dove straight into the love of salt bae’s life; she provided plentiful insights into the role of sodium in our body and the potential implications of overconsumption.

Besides that, she also uncovered the main reasons behind our inclination towards salty foods, and most importantly, she shed light on multiple tactics to curb our salt intake.

Once the session was passed back to our master of ceremonies, a short Q&A session commenced. Dr Goh adeptly addressed questions from the floor, one of which highlighted the issue of health illiteracy in Malaysia. Dr Goh also briefly touched on the harms of another common offender contained in our devilish diets and extended a fact about how sugar influences “ what us 20somethings care most about” beauty and all that accompanies it. The event then transitioned into a Kahoot game, which was really more of a test on whether the participants were paying attention during Dr Goh’s sharing. Suffice to assume that some of the (ridiculously) wrong options brought a smile to their faces who wouldn’t laugh at “Salt can also go by the name bath salt” or “A diet for healthy blood pressure is called the FISH diet”? It was safe to say that Dr Goh was delighted to see that most participants did get most of the questions right.

After the group photo session that followed immediately, the emcee delivered a closing speech and presented links to purchase exclusive PHC merch and to donate to the National Stroke Association of Malaysia (NASAM). With that, the session ended with warm words of thanks to Dr Goh for the eye-opening talk and the same calming music that welcomed all participants into the room.