Nutrition Week Highlights
Celebrating National Nutrition Week is an annual tradition in WCC, organised by the Department of Home Science. This is part of a nationwide mission conducted in September every year by the Government of India to create awareness to eradicate hunger and stunted growth. ‘Rashtriya Poshan Maah,’ launched in the year 2018, is the bedrock of this week-long programme that began on 1 September this year. The theme designated by the department was ‘Mindful Eating,’ inspired by the national theme for the year - ‘Eat smart from start’.
The pandemic and blended learning programme resulted in the event being held online. The inauguration by our Principal, Dr Lilian I Jasper, was followed by a seven-day event of festivity and learning. The students of the second year PG course performed an online skit based on the theme. A webinar conducted by Ms Janani Subburaj, a naturopath and yoga expert, on the topic ‘Mind Your Hunger’ was another feather in the cap for the organising team. The event was further categorised to concentrate on three groups in society: children who fall into the age group 6 to 13 years, girls residing in hostels, and homemakers.
The programme had a wide array of competitions from writing components to debates, comic strips and cooking. The event, which is usually intra-collegiate, was conducted as an inter-collegiate meet this year. Students from different colleges around the city, including MOP Vaishnav and Ethiraj, took part actively. The participants enjoyed the competitions wherein the only hurdle was network glitches that affected a few participants. Nevertheless, the audience participated enthusiastically in the webinar and got their doubts clarified by Ms Subburaj.
When asked about the task of finalising the theme for the year, the Programme Coordinator, Abinaya RS from final year PG, stated that nutrition being a vast subject covers numerous topics but the struggle was to “…brainstorm a theme that would reach the common people without complications of jargon”. She also reflected on the amount of practical insight the participants missed due to organising such an event online because food, according to her, is all about sensory learning.
Irrespective of all the complexities tossed their way by the pandemic, the Department of Home Science has made the cut!
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