A new program designed to promote healthy eating among officers of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) is underway.
DubbedNutritional Advice & Incentivisation Program, it was initiated last month by the RSIPF and Australian Federal Policing Partnership Program (RAPPP).
A police statement said the RAPPP’s Health, Wellbeing and Community Engagement Team (HWCE) and the RSIPF Gym are spearheading the program.
Hency Charles, a member of the HWCE team and senior fitness trainer at the RSIPF Gym, said RSIPF officers need to eat healthy food to keep them strong to carry out their police duties.
“Eating local food is healthy for the body. Local foods fuel the body,” Charles said.
RSIPF Assistant Commissioner, Simpson Pogeava, RSIPF members and RAPPP advisors gathered at the RSIPF Gym at Rove on 21st February to witness the first nutrition demonstration session under this program.
Pogeava, a regular trainee at the gym, encouraged RSIPF officers to do more exercise and to eat more local foods.
Under this nutrition program, the HWCE team will conduct nutrition sessions for various groups in the RSIPF on a fortnightly basis through-out 2025.
RSIPF officers who recently joined the Police Response Department (PRD) will be the first group to receive the program followed by the new recruit cohort.
Charles said while focus has been on the physical fitness of officers, getting the right nutrition to enter their body needs to be strengthened.
“When there is lack of right nutrition in the body, the body will not progress in terms of fitness.
“While looking at the physical aspect of the body, it is critical to also look at the nutrition side,” Charles added.
He encouraged RSIPF officers to eat more local food from the market, saying local foods are abundant in the country and are cheap as an officer can get all the nutrition needed with less than SBD$40.
Apart from supporting the program to rollout, RAPPP also delivered blenders to the RSIPF Gym to help officers able to prepare smoothies using local foods.
Charles said officers can choose to make smoothies with their local foods or they can just eat them, either way, the nutrition that will enter the body is the same.