Know the Importance of Food and Nutrition

Have it ever come into your mind why we give so much importance to food and nutrition?

The answer is simple: food gives the energy to work plus grow. Also without food nobody can survive. Nutrition is equally important as food. Our body requires micronutrients like vitamins, minerals in small quantities and macronutrients like carbohydrates, protein and fat in large quantities. These nutrients help the body in different ways and a deficiency of any of them can affect proper functioning of the body and can even lead to death.

That is why doctors always recommend a healthy, balanced diet for both adults and children.

When we talk about the importance of nutrition and balanced diet, another question pops up-what is a healthy food? Any food item which can help stay healthy including fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, dairy products, nuts, seafood, meat and egg is considered as healthy.  On the other hand, a balanced diet involves consuming only the right amount of food required for a healthy body weight and taking different types of foods in the right proportion. A balanced diet, thus will be high in fruits and vegetables; starch (potatoes, rice, bread, pasta); protein (meat, fish, lentils), dairy products (milk) and will be low in salt, sugar and fat.

Balanced diet has been known to protect against many chronic diseases like stroke, heart disease and diabetes in adults. Similarly, food and nutrition has a critical role in a child’s life. A balanced diet helps brain development, improves concentration, boosts self-confidence, keeps bones strong, fights obesity, improves immunity and keeps diseases away.

However, unfortunately, everyone in the world does not have the opportunity to eat healthy. About 870 million people around the globe fight hunger every day and are at higher risk of malnutrition, stunting, wasting and death.

Deficiencies of vitamin A, iron and zinc have found their places among the top ten leading causes of death in developing countries.  It is concerning to know that nearly two billion people are affected with micronutrient deficiency, mainly deficiency of vitamins and minerals.

Iron deficiency is known to cause brain damage in children and pose heart risk in adults. Similarly, a deficiency in vitamin A in children can lead to blindness and increase the risk of dying from measles, malaria or diarrhoea. An iodine deficiency during pregnancy can lead to poor mental health in babies, stillbirth, abortion, and mental retardation in adults.  Also a zinc deficiency in children can affect proper growth, immunity and cause death.

All these years, some international organisations like UN, WFP, UNICEF have been trying to end this problem.  In India, we, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, have been fighting hunger and malnutrition since 2000 by delivering nutritious mid-day meals to government school children. Our mid-day meals contain all the nutrients required for children’s healthy growth.

Over 1.4 million children have benefitted out of our Mid-Day Meal Programme. However, millions of children still require our help. So create awareness about the importance of nutrition with us and help us provide food and nutrition to more children across India.


To know about the Significance of Good Nutrition for Education, visit: Nutrition for Education

A Meal to Nurture Children Dreams

Fact: Children love food. They all know their favourite grub and if asked they could probably draw it too. Food is sheer love for children. Apart from keeping children energized, focused and healthy food fills them with immense pleasure and that is exactly what we do too! With our morsels of love we feed 1.5 million children every single day. Akshaya Patra’s blue vans reach platefuls of tasty nutritious mid-day meals to these innocent souls for whom that one fresh tasty meal is ample gusto to attend school without a miss!

Source: blog.akshayapatra.org/nurturing-dreams-with-meals/

Make India a Better Place for Girls

Girls are as important as boys. But many of us are yet to completely accept the fact and in several parts of India, girls are still considered as a burden to the family and treated inferior to boys. Moreover, they are denied some basic rights of children like education, freedom and nutrition.  Changing this picture is the main aim behind observing the National Girl Child Day on January 24 every year in India.

Compared to the past, the situation has improved significantly. However, we still have a long way to go to make our nation a better place for girls. There is no doubt that we will reach our destination one day. But to achieve this faster, we have to take care of several elements mainly education for girls.

This is because education is best way to empower girl children or achieve gender equality. An educated girl is not only an asset to her family but to the whole community.  Education gives girls the confidence and skills to work, manage and run a family and help in the betterment of the society.

Interestingly, educating a girl can help avoid some issues our society is currently facing including early pregnancy, malnutrition and infant mortality. Also investing in a girl’s education can bring more returns than that of a boy.  Research shows that an extra year in schooling leads to 15 percent increase in a woman’s future earnings compared to the 11 percent in men.  

Undernutrition is another issue which affects girl children in India. Shockingly, about 47% of teenage girls in the nation are underweight. An undernourished girl child will grow up as an undernourished mother and will give birth to stunted children.

Similarly, child marriage and early pregnancy are the other two issues which haunt Indian girls today. Millions of girls are still married off before 18 and become mothers at an early age.

In an effort to solve these issues and to highlight the importance of education for girls, the Indian Government has introduced several schemes. ‘Beti bachao, beti padhao,’ ‘Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY), ‘Nutrition programme for adolescent girls,’  ‘The Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG) – Sabla’ and the ‘National Scheme of Incentives to Girls for Secondary Education’ are some of them.

Also some NGOs have come forward to help girls. The Akshaya Patra Foundation is one of them. The NGO’s Mid-Day Meal Programme has helped improve girls’ education, helped bring them back to school and boost the nutritional status of girl students.

Educate Girls, Nanhi Kali, Rasta, Save a Girl Child, Plan India are some of the other charities who work for gender equality, girl’s education and welfare of girl children in India.

Despite all these efforts, India is still considered the worst country in the world for girls. On this Girl Child Day, let us change this image -join hands, fight these issues together and provide education for girls, so that India will become a dream land for girls across the whole world.

Get Ready for Outride Hunger 2016!

It’s time of the year again and Outride Hunger, the annual biking event organised by The Akshaya Patra Foundation in partnership with Wrangler, is back.  On 7 February, 2016 over 300 bike enthusiasts who have registered for Outride Hunger 16, will cover a distance of 26 kilometres from Akshaya Patra’s HK Hill kitchen to its Vasanthapura kitchen and raise awareness of Akshaya Patra’s cause. The event will conclude with a tasty lunch and photo session.

Registration is still open. If you are interested, log into our website and provide your contact details along with your T-shirt size. Join us in ending classroom hunger!

www.akshayapatra.org/out-ride-hunger

Effects of Climate Change on Children

Climate changes have been a topic of concern across the world. From Ozone depletion to melting of polar ice caps to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air, we have plenty of reasons to worry.

A report released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001 found humans as the main culprit behind the recent global climate change and the natural calamities which follow it.

An effort to address this problem and improve the situation was initiated at the 21^st Conference of the Parties (COP21) conducted in Paris from 30 November to 12 December 2015. In the conference, all the delegates agreed to keep the ‘increase in global temperature below 2 degree Celsius’.

Here is an example of how natural calamities affected children.

Earth quake and typhoons affect everyone, but children are the most affected of them all.  Some of the effects of climate change and natural calamities include food insecurity -hunger and malnutrition in children -and emotional insecurity -loss of home or loved ones.

Additionally, education also gets severely affected. Nearly 5,000 schools were destroyed in the Nepal earthquake while hundreds got affected in the Malawi floods.  The 2013 Typhoon Haiyan in Philippines damaged around 2,500 schools.

You can read more at http://blog.akshayapatra.org/children-the-unseen-victims-of-climate-change/

Climate change can be solved with proper intervention.  However, we have to start now to protect the planet for our future generations.