Thinking of New Year's Resolution - How about trying the Mediterranean diet?

A main aspect of our learning in the IB Diploma Programme Spanish Course involves learning about the wider culture of Spanish-speaking countries. Personally, I see this as something that is really useful because it allows me to be engaged with Spanish, Mediterranean and South- American cultures, granting me the ability to feel like a global citizen and express a new culture in my day-to-day life - making me feel more internationally minded.

In Term 2, we learnt about issues surrounding ‘Health’ in the Spanish speaking world. Food and nutrition is something that I am personally very interested in, therefore it hardly comes as a surprise to those who know me that I really enjoyed my Spanish lessons last term.

Food is at the heart of Spanish culture. This is because food is used to connect people, for example, in Spain, proper sit-down meals with family and friends, or after dinner discussions over a cup of coffee, are a must. Whether it be family, friends or even when meeting new people, food is at the heart of these connections and helps promote social interactions.

We even learnt some idiomatic expressions where food is used to express a certain message which is not exactly related to food - some of them had regular, day-to-day translations that you wouldn’t guess from hearing the phrase. Some of the idioms had us laughing in class which shows you the extent to which food is a vital part of our lives.

This clearly demonstrates how the Mediterranean diet is not just about what you put in your mouth, but rather a lifestyle followed by many across the world. In fact, Spanish people believe that nobody cooks those dishes better than in the region where they come from, be it the humble Castilian soup made with garlic and bread or the Manchego vegetable stew (pisto), the Mediterranean diet is a driving force in the lives of people and has been ever since the 1990’s.

Over the last week we had two lessons where we studied the Mediterranean diet which is the most predominant diet in Spain. This included what types of foods are eaten within the diet, and in what proportions, as well as the health benefits related to this diet.

For example, ‘al pan pan y al vino vino’ translates to ‘bread is bread and wine is wine’ but the meaning behind the idiomatic expression is ‘it is what it is’.

Then, for our third lesson, we were required to conduct some research and create a few slides about the Mediterranean diet. This task allowed us to exercise our IB ATL skills. We only had 25 minutes to do this! After these 25 minutes, we had to deliver the presentation in front of the entire class and teacher, and we got feedback from our teacher and peers. The hardest part was that during the presentation we couldn’t speak a single word of English - it had to all be in Spanish.

Overall, the experience was fantastic because we got to do our own research and make our own presentations in a foreign language that we were studying, and then we had to present it in that language which led to many mistakes or incorrect translations, which spurred some humour in the class. It also really helped me individually to develop my Spanish speaking skills as well as helping with life skills such as communication and self-confidence.

Moving into the new year, everyone’s going to be making new year resolutions and your health, be it mental or physical, is a very important part of living a good life, therefore I think that anyone who doesn’t have a new year's resolution or who hasn't thought of one regarding their health, be open-minded and try a Mediterranean diet, even just for a couple of weeks.