Eat Right campaign
- October 4, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Eat Right campaign
Subject – Governance
Context – Raj Kumar Rao Urges People to Practice ‘Aaj Se ThodaKam’ for Good Health
Concept –
- Actor Rajkumar Rao has teamed up with FSSAI, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India as its brand ambassador for a campaign, ‘Eat Right Movement’ in partnership with the Health ministry.
- The tagline of this movement is ‘Aaj Se ThodaKam’ which urges people to decrease the quantity of salt, sugar and fats in their diet.
About Eat Right campaign –
- The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has initiated this campaign, wherein the key stakeholders like food processing industries and restaurants will volunteer to reduce the percentage of salt, sugar and fat content in food.
- This campaign has kick-started at a crucial time when India is becoming the diabetes capital of the world, cases of anaemia and micronutrient deficiencies are on the rise, and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) accounting for 1 in 5 disease-related deaths.
- As a part of the campaign, edible oil industries took a pledge to reduce trans-fat content by 2 per cent by 2022. Later, food companies also took a pledge to reformulate packaged foods with reduced level of salt, sugar and saturated fat.
- This Eat Right Movement is a collaborative move with stakeholders—on both the demand and supply side—coming together.
- On the demand side, the campaign focuses on empowering citizens to make right food choices.
- On the supply side, it nudges food businesses to reformulate their products, provide better nutritional information to consumers and make investments in healthy food as responsible food businesses.
- This is a voluntary movement from both the sides.
- Apart from this, a tool kit also has been introduced to address the issue at grassroots level. Both theory- and activity-based manuals have been developed to train the ASHA and Anganwadi workers in the villages.
- On the consumer front, FSSAI has come up with a separate portal where they can post queries and experts from the Nutrition Society of India(NSI), Indian Dietetic Association (IDA), Association of Food Scientists and Technologists (India), Indian Medical Association (IMA), Indian Federation of Culinary Associations (IFCA) and individual experts will guide them.
- An AI-powered Chatbot for citizens to answer all questions related to food is also available. The experts have contributed health tips, balanced diets and easy recipes, which are available on the website.