Apeejay faculty, students focus on nurturing healthy food habits

National Nutrition Month is celebrated annually in September to raise awareness about the importance of maintaining a healthy diet and making informed food choices. It aims to promote the benefits of balanced nutrition, proper meal planning, and physical activity to improve overall health. Organised by various health organisations and institutions, the campaign emphasises the role of good nutrition in preventing lifestyle-related diseases and improving quality of life, especially among vulnerable groups like children and the elderly. The initiative helps foster healthier habits and encourages communities to embrace sustainable dietary practices.

Understanding the significance of this month, the Department of Home Science at Apeejay College of Fine Arts (ACFA), Jalandhar organised a one-day workshop on “Healthy Cooking”. 

On this occasion, Dr. Neerja Dhingra, Principal of ACFA,  expressed her views and said, “Health is wealth and it is important to prioritise our health. In this technological era, we have become lethargic and home-cooked food is seldom prioritised over the easy availability of fast food. These choices definitely affect our health and one should certainly focus on making right choices when it comes to food and health.”

Further during this workshop, Dr. Monica Anand, Head of Department of Home Science, highlighted,  “Incorporating millet in our daily diet plays a significant role as it has a lot of benefits for our health, especially if one’s goal is to reduce their weight. Also, millets are beneficial for hypertension, diabetes and heart patients.”

Under her guidance, Lavina, Naina and Navnoor from BA 5th Semester and Dev Verma from BA 3rd semester played chefs and inspired students to cook healthy food. The students made a variety of healthy food items including  protein salad bowl, ragi oats, banana cookies, chocolate oats cookies, protein rich rajma kabab and beetroot cutlets in this workshop.

Talking about her experience, Naina said, “Nutrition plan plays a crucial role in day to day life. And therefore, this workshop really helped us in further understanding how to make correct food choice.”

Lastly, Dr. Dhingra said that this workshop will be considered successful only when all of us take a pledge to prioritise our health and make healthy and nutritious choices. She also acknowledged the efforts of Dr. Monica for successfully organising this workshop.