Balancing life and work during lockdown proved challenging

Faculty of Community & Health Sciences: Professor Rina Swart - Top Achiever

PROFESSOR Rina Swart has worked in the area of public health nutrition since 1986. Her background training is in dietetics, and her areas of interest are the policies and programmes that address malnutrition in all its forms — be it undernutrition, obesity or micronutrient malnutrition. When thinking about the effect of the pandemic on women, she says: “The answer to this question lies in the nature of the household and pre-Covid responsibilities and interests. My understanding is that the majority of households in South Africa are either female-headed or have a traditional role allocation. In these households, I do think women in academia would have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Where the nature of households differs from the majority, there may be a different experience — for example, in a single parent male-headed household.” Her pandemic experience was as caregiver to three young adult males, her sons, who returned home during this time and happily regressed to the “traditional” role of children in the house. “It was hard work to keep them engaged in household chores. Although I am partly to blame for taking on more than what was necessary. “The online learning environment was new for them and all of them worked really hard, so

the mother with a soft heart tended to occasionally spoil them by washing the dishes or doing the laundry when it was their turn. “Especially during the early lockdown period and the absence of any household

help, I found that household chores (cleaning, cooking, laundry and gardening) took up a disproportionate amount of time compared to pre-Covid. Even though I was used to being actively involved in these over weekends, there was now much more to do on a daily basis. “I can just imagine that for women in academia who have younger children, that it would have been even more challenging. The balance between life and work took a bit of a knock. “If I am honest, I have to say that I did not, and still do not manage this well at all. My children say that my work is also my hobby, so I often end up working all hours.

The only thing that changes is my setting — sometimes it will be in the bedroom, sometimes in the lounge. I know it is unhealthy and found it difficult to manage pre-lockdown. Lockdown made this worse.” Looking ahead, Prof Swart is working hard on planning for a National Dietary Intake study that is supposed to go into the field in July 2021. The tender for this was awarded during lockdown in 2020. Logistically, it is a challenging project. “My collaborators are HODs of

Dietetics and Nutrition from 11 universities in the country — and to date, all our planning had to be done virtually. The nature of the data requires measurement of people to determine nutritional status,as well as interviews to quantify the food people eat daily. This means that data collection needs to be done faceto-face. The third wave of Covid and delays in vaccination are therefore a significant challenge.”

The balance between life and work took a bit of a knock. If I am honest, I have to say that I did not, and still do not manage this well at all.