1Padmashri, Chief Advisor, PHED, GOWB; Former Director, AIIH&PH, GOI; Director, CNCI(GOI); Regional Director, South Asia, MI, IDRC; Regional Advisor (Nutr.), South East Asia, WHO
2Scientist F, HoD, Communication and Gender DivisionVigyan Prasar, Dept. of Science and Technology, GOI, India
3Prof. of Occupational Health, All India Institute of hygiene and Public Health, MOHFW, GOI, India
Online published on 12 March, 2021.
To ensure a safe and hygienic approach of a community, the initiation needs to be done right from young age with regards to safe and nutritious food, safe water, safe environment and proper behaviour and physical activity for school children. The present paper reports the outcome from a study which comprehensively covered all issues of healthy life style for school going children and conducted a quantitative evaluation to identify the needs as well as power of comprehension on an issue wise manner. This was based on suitable 'need based' IEC materials that were developed to conduct awareness generation. The capacity of understanding and acceptance was assessed using a scientifically graded evaluation in Four cities of Patna, Agartala, Kolkata and Guwahati in states of Bihar, Tripura, West Bengal and Assam respectively. It covered 62 schools with a total of 2,645 subjects.
It is a landmark study to take forward the process of lifestyle education in schools, because of the following reasons -
1. It comprehensively covered all inputs that are relevant to an improved lifestyle.
2. It quantitatively assessed the capacity of a child to understand and comprehend different issues using a scientific grading process and identified the subjects which need to be stressed upon.
3. This process can be used in future for conducting as well evaluating lifestyle education programmes in any school.
Life Style, School Children, Awareness Generation, Understanding, Evaluation
