M.V. Diabetes and M. Viswanathan Diabetes Research Centre unveiled a programme targeted at college students to mark World Diabetes Day on Tuesday.
The Chennai Slim and Fit 2.0 is a follow-up to the first project launched in 2007, when school children were taught to stay healthy and fit.
Vijay Viswanathan, Head and Chief Diabetologist, M.V. Diabetes, implemented the comprehensive school health manual across the city in Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) schools. “We followed 6,000 school students in Chennai. In 2007, the CBSE had brought out a health manual, but it was not used. We took out the manual and taught the students and trained teachers. We found that after three years the children had lost weight and their body mass index fell,” he said. The findings were published in a peer-reviewed medical journal in 2013.
The findings indicated that girls were more obese than boys, and at the end of the study, the results showed that the girls had lost weight and their risk factors owing to obesity had reduced, he said. Phase 2 will educate college students as this is the right age that they can take up a healthy lifestyle and prevent becoming overweight, Dr. Vijay added.
“We are taking two colleges in south Chennai and two in north Chennai. We will take two colleges as an active group to teach the faculty about obesity. They will in turn discuss with students for about an hour every week. In south Chennai, the teachers will be the control group,” he said. The students’ height, weight, waist ratio, and skin fold thickness will be recorded along with their diet pattern, sleep schedule, sarcopenia (muscle mass).
Nina Reddy, joint managing director of Savera Hotel, who launched the programme, said people should spend some time on themselves. “Parents have to lead by example by inculcating the child to lead a healthy lifestyle,” she said, and added that it was a discussion she often had with her employees as well. “You need to look after yourself. It is a responsibility for ourselves, your family and the people you work with,” she said.
Ms. Reddy urged the gathering to stay healthy. As an example, she said she started her fitness regimen 35 years ago and considered herself “fairly fit”. She left the audience to mull over a math question: “There are 168 hours in a week. You sleep 8 hours a day. How difficult is it to take out four to five hours a week for exercise.”
