A midst the cacophony of about thirty odd children, the fights for pencils, crayons and erasers, we stood there all smiles, in the Balwadi (a day-care center of sorts for children under five years of age). It was world health day, two days ago. We had organized a drawing competition for children aged 5-15 years in Mettuedayampatti, a village tucked away in Vellore district, Tamil Nadu.
Whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Women’s day or World Health day there are some people who think these labelled days are much ado about nothing. For aren’t love, womanhood and health important every single day of the year.
And yet I fully endorse the World health organization’s idea of having a different theme every year for World health day. This year’s theme was: “Halt the rise: Beat diabetes”. Last year’s was food safety “Ensuring safety from the farm to the plate”. Every year, WHO gives the people something to think about with its meaningful themes. The themes apply to people across the globe irrespective of age, gender, caste, creed, religion or race.
Knowledge doesn’t always translate to practice. Our kids back in the village knew very well that fruits and veggies are healthy options, but they would most likely buy sweets and chips with their ‘pocket money’. And we as adults, might prefer to snack and binge our youth away, instead of putting the extra effort to choose healthy foods. We’d rather stay put on the couch than walk that extra mile. At the end of the day, health is a lot about choices and behavior especially when we are looking at preventing the big Daddies of the Disease list- Diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
The ‘Big daddies’, as I would like to call them, do not differentiate between the rich or the poor. On visiting a daily wage laborer who has diabetes, I wondered how she would cope. Her sugars were sky-high, she would eventually require insulin (to store which, she obviously didn’t have a fridge). She ate ‘ration’ rice three times a day, because she could not afford anything else.
As health care providers, we need to look at health as a part of the bigger picture that includes poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and corruption. For is it enough, if the system gives this lady a prescription for insulin and a fancy diet chart to follow for her diabetes??
World health day definitely got me thinking; about prevention of diseases, primary health care (the basic health services) and about universal access to health (quality health care available to all irrespective of social or economic differences). There are opportunities as well as challenges along the road ahead. Looking forward to a bumpy and hopefully ‘fruitful’ journey! That reminds me, the first prize winner for our drawing competition walked away with a healthy fruit basket!!
Postgraduates from the department of Community Health, CMC Vellore, preparing for World Health Day