Sustainable Diet: Improve well-being without compromising planet

Kapurthala, April 7, 2022: Pushpa Gujral Science City celebrated World Health Day by organizing a webinar to focus global attention on urgent actions required to keep humans and the planet healthy and foster a movement to create societies focused on well-being. The theme for this year celebration was ”Our Planet, Our Health”. Around 100 students and teachers from all over Punjab participated through virtual mode.

Dr. Neelima Jerath, Director General, Science City giving introductory remarks at the occasion said that World Health Day is celebrated every year on 7th April to commemorate the anniversary of World Health Organization (WHO) and to create awareness of a specific health theme to highlight a priority area of concern. She said that annually more than 13 million deaths occur around the world due to avoidable environmental causes including climate crisis which is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. Further, COVID-19 has exposed many environmental, economic and social issues which also highlight the fragility of our current food systems, she added.
Dr. Anjali Arora, Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Punjab Institute of Medical Science, Jalandhar was the key speaker at this occasion. Delivering a talk on “our food, our planet” at the occasion, she said that there is close bond between us and food that is always linked to human survival and well-being, but today, it is also a key to environmental protection. We need to find out ways by which healthy and sustainable diets contribute to improve our well-being without compromising our planet. Further, imbalanced relationship between food, planet and future highlights the need for reforming our food value chains to be more sustainable and resilient to crisis, she added.
Dr. Rajesh Grover, Director, Science City speaking at the occasion said that present Food systems are threatening and exhausting natural resources through the intensive farming and industrial agriculture. He urged the participants to develop a deep understanding of the essential link between individual and collective health for a sustainable life.