Insights
Fighting for Nutrition | Lutgard Musiime's Story
So, here’s my call to you: whatever your field, whatever your passion, choose the path that heals, that includes, that explains. Because in my world, we are not just changing diets. We are changing destinies.
LéO Africa Institute Communications Team
Contributor
At 19, I sat in tears before the elders. You know those uncles and aunties who only gather when something is seriously wrong? And no, I had not stolen anything, nor had I eloped with a man. I was there for one reason: my childhood dream of becoming a doctor had suddenly changed. And my mother was not amused. See, if you were born in the early 90s, you know the holy trinity of prestige: medicine, engineering, and law. And here I was telling my clan I wanted to do nutrition.
After my S.4, there was no question about the combination I had to take. The cutoff points into A level did not matter; I was willing to go anywhere as long as biology and chemistry appeared somewhere in there. But no one prepared me for the fire I was going to find, and by the time I was done with those 2 years, I was academically exhausted.
The world today tells you, follow your passion, no one should dictate to you, but they leave out the part where the power belongs to the one who pays the bills. So, when I said I wanted to do nutrition, I could still hear the interrogation. Who do you know who has done this course? What do they do? Honestly! I didn’t have an idea, but I had been convinced enough to fight for it. I saw the brokenness in my mother’s eyes as she pleaded with me. “Those tenant houses can even be transformed into wards,” I still refused. The council resolved something vague that I cannot clearly recall.
That drive from the village was the longest I have ever been on. That night, I cried myself to sleep as my brother chose to wake up at 3 am to pray for the 2 women in the house to at least reach a consensus. By the morning, mum was at UNICEF, where my brother worked at the time, and by close of day, my choice to pursue nutrition had been hesitantly approved thanks to Professor Emmanuel, who managed to convince the one paying the bills that there is a future in this path.
And that is how I began mine
You see, millions today, about 43 million globally, battle illnesses born from the food they eat and the lives they live. Noncommunicable diseases are not distant statistics. They sit at our dining tables, in school kitchens, in the pill boxes of our grandparents. Food is good. You know the five languages: physical touch, gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service, and quality time? I think the author missed a sixth one, and that is foo,d because food is a good thing. Food howeve,r has for many moved from simple survival to something more complicated. Food used well can nourish, heal, and give life. Used poorly, it can hold you back, make you sick, or even become a silent threat to your survival. Hence, the non-communicable diseases.
There is power in giving information and knowledge, and I have seen this power. You see, the battlefield has shifted. We fight not just in clinics, but in the digital space. The problem is, the digital space comes with all kinds of information, truth, and myths alike. So there needs to be a voice that is going to help people understand what the truth is and what the myths are. When I realized that, I knew that I had to take the mantle and take action. I knew I was the one. So, what did I do? I used the digital space. I love to give information and knowledge.
Not long ago, I shared a video on cerebral palsy. Today, I work in three areas: school feeding, nutrition therapy, and disability-inclusive nutrition. I am going to talk a little more about disability inclusive nutrition because this is an area that has been ignored for a while. Take an example of a child with cerebral palsy, a simple task like swallowing food given to them on a spoon is very hard. These are things we don’t pay attention to, but for these children, chewing and swallowing food is a very hard task.
So, when I shared that video, a mother on TikTok had this to say “My daughter has CP… Life has been hell for the last 8 years… In Uganda, you are on your own. Even most doctors and nutritionists don’t know how to help.”
That message broke me. Because I could read her pain in those words, and I said to myself, this can’t be it. 1.3 billion people in the world are living with a disability, and 80% of those people have a feeding difficulty, can you imagine! This is the very gap I was called to fill. That 19-year-old who held onto that nutrition dream against all odds has something they are doing about the situation to see that the 80% of feeding difficulties for the 1.3 billion people in the world living with a disability comes to 0%. How do we do this?
We are now training healthcare workers and caregivers on how to look after these children to feed them safely. How do they prepare the food in an appropriate texture, and position them to see that that food will not be the end of their life. The very people I wanted to be are the same people that I have the privilege to train. We have trained doctors and nurses in Mulago National Referral Hospital, Moroto Regional Referral Hospital, St Kizito Hospital, Matany, as well as various childcare institutions. As a result of this, together with my colleagues, we have contributed to the Ministry of Health's feeding guidelines for children with disabilities soon be disseminated to guide the health care workers on how to handle these children when they come into their care. Originally, these children would come, they treat the symptoms only to go back, choke on their feeds, and return with the illness, and they treat the symptoms without looking at the root cause.
But that is not all, because of the passion that I held onto, I cofounded a nutrition hub called Nutrition Garage with my business partner, Jennipher Tumukunde, that deals with corporate nutrition as a way to curb non-communicable diseases. People today are living sedentary lives, so we go into organisations and teach people how to look after themselves while on their jobs. We give them knowledge so that they can make informed decisions while supporting them with meals and meal plans, thereby translating into improved choices and lifestyles even back at home. The workplace is our entry point into improved lifestyles.
Dear young person, don’t sit waiting for opportunities; create them. Leverage on the free digital space and create that need. You can give information, and you have no idea how much that information is going to benefit someone. I have seen people who have changed their lives with the information I give through the different social media platforms, as well as the training I give. Over 1000 caregivers and 500 healthcare workers have been trained; now translate that to the people who are going to be impacted by this training.
That 19-year-old may not have become a doctor, but she became a trainer of doctors. And also, let’s say, we settled our scores with my mum. While she would have wanted me to pursue something she knew well and had heard about, she doesn’t hate this either.
