In News

The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has launched a campaign promoting ‘eat right movement’ – POSHAN Maah 2019 – across the country.

In-Detail

• POSHAN Maah 2019 is a year-long campaign involving social and mass media campaigns on Eat Right India movement.
• The Ministry led the movement by a tweet-a-day that will focus on a weekly theme of eating right for the next 365 days.
• The Ministry has also launched an eat right India logo representing a healthy plate.

There will also be an online quiz and online course for health workers as part of the campaign.

The Need

• Consuming the right food is the first and preventive step in disease occurrence.
• Non-communicable diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and heart diseases are caused due to not consuming the right food. The burden of these diseases is increasing day-by-day on the country.
• Also, vitamin and mineral deficiency due to improper food intake is adding to the risk of food-borne illnesses.
• Thus, the Eat Right Movement promotes preventive health by triggering social and behavioural change through a mix of regulatory measures, and soft intervention in the form of generating awareness, capacity building of citizens and food businesses.

In Alignment 

• The movement is in alignment with the goals of flagship government programmes like POSHAN Abhiyaan, Ayushman Bharat Yojana, Swachh Bharat Mission, and Anemia Mukt Bharat.
• FSSAI has also made regulatory provisions to promote right eating. It has three major pillars in its regulatory functions – Eat safe, Eat Healthy and Eat sustainably.
• Already it has prescribed the amount of Total Polar Compounds (TPC) at 25% in cooking oils that will reduce the harmful effects of reused cooking oil.

Conclusion

Health and nutrition go hand-in-hand. Poor dietary habits are the major reasons for the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and hypertension in the country. The movement is expected to generate the necessary awareness among the public in eating right and hopes to change the dietary habits among the citizens for a healthy citizenry.

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