The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Yoga to be made compulsory for schoolchildren

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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Yoga to be made compulsory for schoolchildren

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Yoga will be taught compulsorily to all schoolchildren as part of the National School Health Programme, Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss announced on Saturday.

Participating in the Diabetes Summit for South East Asia organised jointly by the International Diabetes Federation, World Diabetes Foundation, World Health Organisation and the World Bank, Dr.Anbumani said the programme would be made mandatory in all the schools in the country after the Assembly elections. There was scientific evidence to prove that yoga had a beneficial effect on persons with diabetes and hypertension and could also reduce stress.

Later speaking to reporters, he said there were international studies, including some from the Johns Hopkins Institute, that proved yoga could be used as therapy in some chronic conditions.

Simultaneously, the Ministry would also launch basic health screening camps, classroom education on healthy lifestyles, physical activity and dangers of using drugs and alcohol, he said. “The threat from junk food to India’s health is now recognised by everybody… I believe all types of junk food – from pizzas to samosas – should not be available in school canteens,” he added.

In order to create a facilitating environment for students, the Ministry had also written to a number of State governments to get rid of junk foods in schools, but few States had taken efforts in this regard. Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra are the two States that seem to have made some headway in removing junk food and replacing it with healthy options in the school canteens, but much more would have to be done.

Impact of ads

The Minister also spent a fair bit of time discussing the negative impact of advertisements promoting junk foods. He told reporters later that “while the Union Ministry cannot ban either selling of junk foods or advertisements promoting such products, we have advised State governments to restrict the number of such advertisements.” Food labelling would also be made mandatory next year, wherein any packaged food would have to contain information about weight, nutritive value and energy value on the pack. In his address at the seminar, he said India was experiencing a rapid health transition, with a large and rising burden of chronic diseases accounting for 53 per cent of all deaths and 44 per cent of disability-adjusted life years in 2005. The close link between diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular disease and stroke is well known, he said.

Rhetorically asking the question about why diabetes was rising so rapidly in India, Dr. Anbumani argued that there could not be a single answer. Instead, he said the relationship between diabetes, nutrition and lifestyles in etiological and therapeutic perspective appear to be most crucial. Bringing up the reality of increasing out-of-pocket expenditure on chronic diseases, he said prevention of diabetes was the answer. The National Programme for the Prevention and Control of Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and stroke, inaugurated this year, intended to do just that.

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