Empty chairs for the abductees next to tables laden with food • Nutrition Week in Rambam

Thinking about food, thinking about the abducted also during the nutrition week

Healthy food on the purity of the color yellow, empty chairs next to tables loaded with all the goodness of food, but also with pictures of abductees. Nutrition Week of the year 2024 was marked in Israel this year as "nutrition as an anchor on the front and in the rear" and Rambam dedicated a lot of creativity to the topic. During the week, a host of activities took place, in which a member of Rambam's clinical nutrition department staff visited the departments and employees in an informative and experiential activity. Because proper nutrition is a recipe for solid health, optimal recovery and even prevention of many diseases.

"Story Hour" in Rambam

The week opened with a "story hour" that took place in the children's outpatient clinics at the "Ruth" hospital in Rambam, during which the children were exposed to the great difference between consuming high-sugar sweets and food colorings and eating fruits and vegetables, experiential informational materials were distributed to the children using stickers, coloring books and inflatable balloons in the form of vegetables.

The highlight was story time, during which a clinical nutritionist told the audience a story whose moral is the importance of eating vegetables of different colors. The story time and the ward staff aroused great interest among the young patients, and quite a few children signed up who wanted to highlight their knowledge of the different types of vegetables and what they like to eat the most.

Information booths throughout the week

Throughout the week, information booths were set up on behalf of the Department of Clinical Nutrition in the main building, where the large public of visitors were exposed to the great differences between processed food in favor of consuming natural food, experiential explanations about the amount of salt in popular foods with the aim of reducing consumption, and a booth where they explained about foods that affect stress reduction.

Prof. Miki Halbertal, director of Rambam, stated in a letter sent to all female workers in honor of National Nutrition Week:

The Department of Clinical Nutrition at Rambam consists of a professional, high-quality and up-to-date team that provides meticulous service to patients, which contributes to the quality of care and shortening their hospitalization days. Their work is very welcome and important in the hospital, which helps all the other teams maintain a high and professional level of care.

The collaboration between the clinical nutrition department and the welfare department

The highlight of the activity was the collaboration between the clinical nutrition department and the welfare department in the human resources division, in what has already become a 3-year tradition: "a nutritious and inviting breakfast competition" between the various hospital departments. This year the competition was marked "Trays in colors". 13 departments registered for the competition, competed very creatively for the first place.

Among the judged criteria can be found a natural and balanced nutritional composition, presentation aesthetics, fresh and seasonal food, variety, multiculturalism, originality, teamwork and sustainability. It was clear that this year, following the Shabbat events in October, the teams highlighted the feeling of "togetherness" as a multicultural team, which is clearly evident in the family feeling, solidarity and great contribution of all the participants in the competition.

As mentioned, some of the departments incorporated in their performances the struggle of the families of the abducted and the abducted captives held captive by the terrorist organization Hamas, when next to the wearing of the yellow ribbon pin of the families' headquarters, entire meals were arranged around the color yellow and the painful issue, or a chair and an empty plate with pictures of members of the Biebs family and Agam Berger, who were abducted to the Gaza Strip 247 days ago, as a symbol of cruelty to the abductees by Hamas, or the "table of hope" for the return of the 120 abductees.

And in the first place...

The first place in the competition was won by the hospital's information center team, the second place was shared by the children's MD team and the pharmacy services team, the third place was shared by the logistics and clinical immunology laboratory teams.

Ronit Friedman, the director of the department, summarized the many activities around the competition:

We all had a special and exciting experience today from the tremendous investment of the departments and the serious and respectful attitude towards the project. It was a formative, enjoyable and empowering activity for all the teams in the participating departments, which "caused" the judging this year to be particularly challenging given the high level that the departments presented.

The staff at headquarters pay tribute to the families of the abductees ► Watch

Merav Ganot, director of the welfare department:

This year's competition was marked by the Shiva events in October, we continued the tradition and were excited to see how the events of the period were translated into creative and embracing action. The event was a breath of fresh air for the teams and achieved its goal, the teams of the departments worked together and invested a lot and we saw how much they enjoyed themselves.