Central News & Network–ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: An outreach activity was organized by the Department of Pediatrics at AIIMS Bhopal under the leadership of Executive Director Ajay Singh at MLB Girls School, Barkheda, Bhopal.
Prof. Singh stated, “At AIIMS Bhopal, we are deeply committed to addressing the critical issue of malnutrition and ensuring the health and well-being of our community, particularly the younger generation. This outreach activity, as part of the ongoing Nutrition Month 2024, is a significant step towards empowering adolescent girls with knowledge about proper nutrition, hygiene, and health. Adolescence is a transformative phase, and ensuring that our youth, especially girls, are well-informed about their nutritional and health needs is essential for building a healthy future.”
The month of September is being celebrated as ‘Nutrition Month 2024,’ with the aim of combating malnutrition and improving the nutrition levels of pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, adolescent girls, and children up to the age of six. This year, in its 7th phase, the Nutrition Month campaign is focused on key themes such as anemia prevention, growth monitoring, effective service delivery through governance and technology, ‘Nutrition and Education Together,’ and supplementary nutrition. The program aimed to provide essential information related to nutrition, health, and hygiene to adolescent girls. More than 200 participants actively took part in the event.
The program began with Indresh Kumar highlighting the importance and objectives of the National Nutrition Month. Following this, expert speakers shared crucial insights on malnutrition, overnutrition, nutritional needs during adolescence, physical and emotional changes, and hygiene and sanitation during menstruation. Alongside the informative lectures, written information was also provided to the adolescent boys and girls.
In a Q&A session conducted by Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Yogendra Yadav, participants asked questions related to adolescent health, which were satisfactorily answered. The program also featured contributions from the SMART Unit staff, Mrs. Jayshree Lokhande and Mrs. Swati Rawat, who emphasized issues related to nutrition in adolescent girls. Junior residents and senior resident doctors from the Department of Pediatrics were also present and shed light on health-related concerns among adolescents.
The school’s principal, Mrs. Smita Meshram, along with other teachers, attended the event and appreciated AIIMS’ initiative.