New Delhi, Launching the Poshan Maah (nutrition month) 2019, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said the ‘Eat Right India’ movement takes a holistic approach towards food habits to promote health and sustainability.
“The ‘Green Good Deeds’, a campaign to protect environment and promote healthy living, has found global acceptance, and the ‘Eat Right India’ movement is also set to become a global best practice with the support of national and international stakeholders,” the Health Minister said.
He sought the media’s help to disseminate the key message of this movement and make it popular.
Vardhan also launched the ‘Eat Right India’ logo that represents a healthy plate, an online ‘Eat Right Quiz’, the ‘Eat Right Online Course’ for frontline health workers and the ‘Eat Right India Store’ featuring merchandises to promote right eating habits.
He said the country needed a mass movement on preventive and promotive health in the backdrop of increase in non-communicable diseases, like diabetes, hypertension and heart diseases, and widespread deficiencies of vitamins and minerals and rampant food-borne illnesses.
The ‘Eat Right India’ drive is being helmed by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). It is also aligned with the flagship public health programmes, like the Poshan Abhiyaan, the Anaemia-mukt Bharat, the Ayushman Bharat Yojana and the Swachh Bharat Mission.
Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, World Health Organisation (WHO), said, “The message of the ‘Eat Right India’ movement is what the WHO has been saying all along. There has been a shift in the mortality due to communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases, like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and cancer across the world.”
She stressed healthy diet, physical exercise, avoidance of tobacco and alcohol as main factors to prevent non-communicable diseases.
