The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, North Eastern Regional Centre, Guwahati, Assam has organised One day National Webinar on Preventive healthcare and Promotion of healthy lifestyle on Thursday December 23,2021 from 2.30 PM to 5.15 PM as part of Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav Celebrations (75 years of India’s Independence). The main aim of the webinar is to discuss the importance of Preventive healthcare and promotion of healthy lifestyle practices and further to deliberate on various fitness domain for creating healthy nation with the ability to take the right preventive steps.
The Webinar was inaugurated by Shri. I. Venkateswarlu, IAS (Rtd.) Former Commissioner of Government of Andhra Pradesh and Health Writer in presence of Dr.Ravindra S.Gavali, Director, NIRDPR NERC Guwahati, and Dr.T.Vijaya Kumar, Associate Professor and Webinar Coordinator.
Dr.T.Vijaya Kumar Associate Professor and Webinar Coordinator, while welcoming the delegates and guests emphasised the importance of preventive healthcare and said that it is becoming an area of focus in most of the countries including India. Due to hectic schedules and lifestyle choices, healthcare takes a backseat for many people. Stressful and unhealthy lifestyles have led to a significant increase in the incidence of diseases like hypertension, diabetes and cancer etc.
Dr. Ravindra S.Gavali, Director I/C, NERC NIRDPR while delivering the Opening remarks highlighted that at Preventive healthcare means catching potential problems before they become real problems.
In rural areas access to quality health is a challenging task so indigenous health system need to be promoted as preventive health care.
Sri. I.Venkateshwarlu former commissioner and health writer Govt. of A.P while delivering inaugural address highlighted that there is a prevailing notion that our health depends upon the doctor’s treatment is completely wrong. We go to the doctor only when we are sick. The doctor gives us only disease care keeping ourselves healthy is real healthcare.
It’s preventive in nature. And our body knows how to keep us healthy. We call it Homeostasis, which means, the body keeps us in balance,whenever it’s out of balance—which we call Dis-Ease.
As movement is life, and stillness is death, we should take at least half an hour’s brisk walk a day.Exercise is king and Nutrition is queen and put them together to have a healthy kingdom.
Sri. Jagannath Chatterjee, Health campaigner from Odisha in his deliberation stressed on Health Barriers among Rural and Tribal Population in the webinar. Said that Disease is primarily about waste accumulation, toxic exposure and nutritional deficiencies. Rampant forest felling also made mosquitoes head towards areas of tribalhabitations.
Deforestation deprived them of habitation and forest based foods, destroyed their medicinal base. The traditional herbal, mineral, and nature based healing system of the tribal must be restored.
Medicine can work only if it is culturally appropriate.Breaking cultural barriers to introduce modern medicine has sickened tribal. Home birthing must be encouraged by training traditional home delivery attendants. The best example is the case of the Medak district of Telangana wherein the tribal birth attendants taught the doctors about the benefits and art of natural birthing another example is tackling malnutrition through sustainable agro forestry based agriculture and WASH in Koraput district of Odisha.
Dr. Manisha Choudhury, Faculty, Department of Food Science and Nutrition from Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat has deliberated on Nutrition for Preventive health. Nutrition is the intake of food, considered in relation to the body’s dietary needs. A balanced diet is one that contains all the different components essential for health and provides all the nutritional requirements for a long and healthy life. In India 61% of population suffering with Vitamin A.
Deficiency (subclinical VAD) (NNMB) and Out of 325 districts 263 districts are IDD-endemic. InAssam state Children age 6-59 months who are anaemic (68.4%) which is higher than the national average. In North Eastern States Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura are lagging behind in most of the nutritional indicators such as early initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth; percentage of Children under 3 years who are stunted;the percentage of Children under3 years who are underweight.The impact of malnutrition during the first 1,000 days is largely irreversible—but these consequences are preventable. Another alarming indictor is Anaemia is very high among children, adolescent girls and pregnant women. Health promotion and Prevention are the important strategies through which we can create healthy society.
Brig.H.M.Pant (Rtd) Holistic healer from Uttarakhand has deliberated on holistic lifestyle and said that people must live with nature. Lifestyles have changes people are habituated to drink not fruit beverages that should discouraged in rural areas also these beverages are very much accessible.
For healthy life people should establish close linkage with the five elements – air, water, fire,weather and space. Noxious chemical pollutants, deforestation, depletion of ozone layer, rapid extinction of verities of flora and fauna has lot of impact on lifestyle of the population. One should practice traditional healing systems and in emergencies only prefer the allopathic medicine.
Strategies are very important and should be focused on fitness domains such as physical activity, healthy eating and emotional wellbeing for establishing healthy lifestyle.
The Webinar was concluded with proposal of Vote of thanks and wrap up. Total 80 participants are represented from pan India.
(Photo Credit : NIRDPR)
