Nutrition Awareness Workshop at Siddhi Mangal Secondary School

Introduction

On March 2, 2025, YLCGH organised a Mental Health Awareness Workshop aimed at raising awareness among students about the importance of nutrition and consumption of balanced diet, recognising signs of overeating ,junk foods and unhealthy misbalanced diet and learning strategies on improving their overall health.
This workshop was part of the YLCGH initiative to promote physical, emotional and social well- being of students under the school health program.

Workshop Objectives

The primary workshop of the goals were :

• To educate students about the significance of balanced diet.

• To recognise the kind of nutrition they get in each food and the long -term impact that these foods create.

• To identify foods reach in carbohydrate ,vitamins, minerals ,fats ad protein.

• To encourage students to help themselves and their friends and families to consume balanced diet.

Overview of the Session

The workshop was structured in an interactive format, combing both informative sessions and brain storming sessions along breathing exercise to engage the students. The content covered the following key areas.

1. Pre- assessment

The session began with the pre assessment with few questions to assess and reflect what ideas students had on nutrition and balanced diet. The session further progressed on an in-depth session that students could understand at their level. They were encouraged to actively participate in the conversation with the instructor and their friends.

2. Immunity card

8 parameters were considered to help students identify whether they were healthy or not. If they scored greater numbers they were considered immune and healthy . Those scoring less were taught how they could raise their numbers and stay healthy. The concept of immunity was well taught to them.

3. Nutrition and Balanced diet

The session progressed with the concept of nutrition and balanced diet with the examples of the foods and resources that students consumed on a daily basis. Active discussion was held and students were demonstrated examples in an illustration. This part of the session included practical advice on how to have balanced diet and proportion required. Students were also taught about they process of digestion and how body processed foods and transforms into the energy that they require on a daily basis.

Breaking food into their fundamentals

The session taught what ideally food is composed of breaking into’s fundamental components-

carbohydrate, fats, protein ,vitamins and minerals. Importance of each component was explained

along with the disease they invited in their deficiency. Students were given different examples and

they categorised what each food was rich in.

One of the student volunteers was asked to summarise and reflect what they had learnt during the

how they were going to apply the knowledge in their daily activities and live a healthy

session and lifestyle.

The workshop included series of interactive activities designed to engage students and foster a

better understanding of the concepts discussed on balanced diet. These included

1. 2. Brainstorming and categorising the foods into nutrients they were reach in

Flipchart was shown to demonstrate healthy foods and help them visualise.

3. Mindfulness exercise was done from the previous session to break the monotony of the

session.

4. Quiz cum discussion was done and we searched for multiple solutions that students came up

after discussing with their peers on how they could help themselves and their friends to

consume balanced diet.

Key Take aways :

1. Students were aware about the concept of balanced diet but yet consumed junk food mostly

during lunch.

2. Active participation was very encouraging , it could be further strengthened by practical

demonstration

3. Students were actively rewarded with chocolates as a sign of encouragement.