Boys' High School & College
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Consultant endocrinologist and Professor of Medicine, Moti Lal Nehru (MLN) Medical College, Dr Sarita Bajaj enlightened the students and staff of the Boys’ High School (BHS) and College about diabetes, obesity and life style disorders at an educative programme on “Diabetes Health Awareness” held here. The programme was organised by the Diabetes Education Forum (DEF) under the project `Marg’---the Path. She also educated them on optimal dietary and lifetsyle practices for prevention of the above-mentioned diseases

Nearly 2,000 children of class 7 to 12, attended the programme. They also actively participated in various activities---debate, extempore speech, poster making, quiz, essay writing,  paragraph writing and slogan writing. In a lively talk, she disseminated informations on health, nutrition, physical activity and diseases like diabetes, obesity, hypertension caused by improper nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle.

Prof (Dr) Sarita Bajaj said that obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, with more than one billion adults overweight---at least 300 million of them clinically obese--- and is a major contributor to the global burden of chronic disease and disability. Often co-existing in developing countries with under-nutrition, obesity is a complex condition, with serious social and psychological dimensions, affecting virtually all ages and socioeconomic groups. She further added that overweight and obese children and adolescents are at a very high risk for the development of early-onset of diabetes and heart disease and now. India now faces “double jeopardy” of under and over nutrition.

Giving statistics to bring home the point, she said that the National Family Health Survey reports a prevalence of overweight/obesity amongst 14.8 % women (urban: 28.9%; rural: 8.6%) and 12.1% men (Urban: 22.2%; rural: 7.3%). The prevalence of obesity in Uttar Pradesh has been reported to be 11.1% amongst women (urban: 24.6; rural: 7.2%) and 9.9% amongst men (urban: 22.0%; rural: 5.7%). The prevalence amongst women in the state has increased from 7.3 to 11.1% in the past 6 years. The state data also revealed that there was an increase in the prevalence with an improvement in the educational status.

Throwing light on the project ‘MARG’---the Path, implemented by the Diabetes Foundation (India), New Delhi with financial support from the World Diabetes Foundation, Denmark, she said that it aims to create awareness about diabetes, obesity, lipid disorders and heart disease in children and adolescents, to teach them optimal dietary and lifestyle practices for prevention of diseases mentioned above, so that they could act as change agents to disseminate messages regarding healthy living to peers and family.

In Allahabad the programme was started in May 2008, headed by Dr Sarita Bajaj, Consultant Endocrinologist and Prof of Medicine, MLN Medical College. She used innovative and locally appropriate education strategies for prevention. At least ten schools — Boys’ High School, St Mary’s Convent, St Joseph’s College, Bishop Johnson School & College, Mary Lucas School & College, Mary Wanamaker College and Jagat Taran Golden Jubilee School and three government schools have been targeted. Anthropometric measurements of height and weight of over 6000 children were undertaken to know their nutritional status.

The results are as follows: Debate: Shambhav Pandey (9E): I;. Mathar Hasan (8E): Hamza Pervez  (12C): III; Extempore Speech : Ankit Jaggi (9B): I; Pranshul Srivastava  (10D): II; Akshay Pandey (12C): III Poster Making : Abel John (9E) : I; Aaron Lawrence, Ian Parth Dwijendra, Siddharth Chatterji (12C): II; Bhartendu Singh, Shashank Kumar, Dev Priyam Mishra (10E): III.Quiz: Team A (Siddharth Chatterji) and Team B (Ian Parth Dwijendra): I

Essay Writing: Abhishek Agarwal (8E): I ;Archit Srivastava (8C): II; Dev Priyam Mishra (10E): I; Prateek Srivastava (10G): II Paragraph writing: Mudit Dubey (8A): I; Shivansh Mishra (7D): II; Aaron Anshu Lawrence (12C): I; Arnab Das (12C): II  Slogan writing: Mathar Hasan (8E): I; Sajal Verma (8E): II; Aaron Anshu Lawrence (12C): I; Siddharth Chatterji (12C): II