Awareness about nutrition makes a lot of difference in the health of the society and country. Nutritional deficiencies render entire populations unproductive. Malnutrition among children is still a challenge for India and a hindrance in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals for health. Therefore, it is important to understand the importance of a healthy diet, nutritional deficiencies, and more. 

In March 2018, the Government of India launched the POSHAN Abhiyaan program to improve the nutritional status of children, adolescents, pregnant women, and lactating mothers. 

The flagship program aims to create synergy between different nutrition schemes across ministries in achieving a common goal through the implementation of a systematic convergent mechanism of service delivery, environment building, technology empowerment, program strengthening, and monitoring.

To support this mission, in 2019, an initiative titled “IMPAct4Nutrition” (I4N) was convened and launched by Tata Trusts, CSRBOX, UNICEF, Sight and Life, CII, United Way Mumbai, and NASSCOM Foundation. 

I4N is a platform for the private sector to become actively engaged and build a social movement with their employees and their families, customers as well as anyone else who is a part of the business ecosystem, to support the Poshan Abhiyaan. 

Today, I4N has 17 initiative partners and over 220 pledged partners. 

Awareness Among Hundreds

To achieve their goals, Impact4Nutrition coordinated with one of the pledged partners ‘Birlasoft’ to conduct awareness sessions among their workforce. Further, a session was also conducted among children of their NGO partner – Smile Foundation. 

Session in progress about good nutrition.

On September 23, 2022, a virtual session named 'Good nutrition and healthy diet at the workplace' was organized with more than 450 employees of Birlasoft. The session had expert speakers from the Impact4Nutrition team and aimed at educating the workforce. During the sessions, various topics regarding a healthy lifestyle were covered including the basics of nutrition for our daily dietary intake, macro & micronutrients, and how to read food labels among others. 

Mantri Swathi, an employee at the organization who participated in the Good Nutrition and Health Diet session said the session was useful and informative. 

She says, “I must thank the organizing partners for carrying out this initiative with the help of a doctor. The information provided regarding the quantity and quality of food we must intake and the exercises we can do at the workplace was very helpful. The various topics regarding nutrition and health were explained easily.” 

Virtual awareness session in progress

On September 28, 2022, another session was conducted virtually with the employees of Birlasoft. However, this session named "Nutrition for Women’s Health" was exclusively for women. 

With an expert from the Impact4Nutrition team disseminating information, the session aimed at educating women about complications arising from lifestyle disorders and how to mitigate the challenges and problems arising out of them. It guided them in managing various lifestyle-related disorders such as diabetes, hyperthyroidism, PCOS/PCOD, insulin resistance, and more.

70 women participated in the session and each was thankful to the speaker and partners of Impact4Nutrition and Birlasoft for organizing the same. The participants were able to clear the necessary doubts they had in a safe environment and receive satisfactory solutions to their problems. 

Vijayshree, a participant in the session said that the information will help everyone take care of their health in a progressive way. 

She says, “This session will help me focus on health going forward. Being a woman, I have faced different health challenges through different phases of life. But after listening to this session I received more knowledge on nutritious foods and unhealthy lifestyles. I am very thankful to Dr. Swetha Patel for explaining the details wonderfully and I am looking forward to more in the future.” 

Through these sessions, the employees were made aware of healthy eating habits which can have long-term benefits including an increase in productivity at work. 

 Virtual session explaining women’s health.

Awareness Among Children 

A healthy and balanced diet is key to children's growth and development. Right nourishment in the early stages of life can help children study well, grow up healthy, contribute to their family incomes and be able to break away from the vicious cycle of poverty.  

To empower children with the right knowledge of nutrition, IMPAct4Nutrition conducted an interactive session named “Nutrition for Adolescents” on October 8, 2022. 80 children from Smile Foundation, an NGO partner of Birlasoft, participated in the same.

The session discussed the basics of nutrition and how minor tweaks in daily food intake can enhance nutritional value. The session contained videos to engage children and also included a quiz to help them learn in a fun manner. 

Healthy eating in childhood means they will have less chance of developing chronic diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and some cancers. It will also mean they feel better and enjoy life more. Today, children have a better understanding of healthy and unhealthy foods which motivates them to make better choices in the future. 

Overall, the sessions were well-received among the participants.