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hello friends what you see via is a

nutrition health education session in

progress the community worker is talking

to mothers about infant feeding

practices nutrition and health education

is a key focus area why why do we need

to emphasize on nutrition and health

education you would probably know the

answer

malnutrition is a common problem

affecting large population groups in our

country it is estimated that about 250

million people most of them children and

mothers suffer from varying degree of

malnutrition what contributes to

malnutrition poverty ignorance infection

poor infant feeding practices faulty

eating habits are factors contributing

to malnutrition what can be done to

combat malnutrition our government has

initiated short term and long term

measures to combat malnutrition

you might recall reading about one short

term measure that is providing

supplementary feeding to vulnerable

sections like mothers and children

nutrition and health education on the

other hand is a long-term measure to

combat malnutrition providing basic

nutrition and health knowledge education

to community groups can go a long way to

combat malnutrition the focus of

nutrition and health education is on

people and action

the aim of nutrition and health

education is to persuade people to adopt

sustained desirable and improved

nutrition and health practices and to

help them take decisions individually or

collectively to improve their nutrition

and health status and environment

nutrition and health education has

become an important part of the school

curriculum and the nutrition programs

nutrition and health education is also

important in the context of the problems

of over nutrition what are the

components of nutrition and health

education what is its significance we

need to know a lot more on these aspects

I'm talking to us as Leslie please

Pilate is a prerequisite for human

productivity as well as economic and

technological development of any country

it is especially so in a country like

India which has a labor-intensive

economy rather than the capitalistic

economy but as you all know the good

health is not by virtue of birth or a

place that you are staying in but it is

an end product of the good healthy

habits that we develop over the years

malnutrition is one of the biggest

national problems that we have in our

country which affects mostly pregnant

women nursing mothers and small children

and when this malnutrition exists in

such vulnerable groups when the children

grow up they become adults who have not

attained their potentiality to be

healthy robust citizens with the result

we have an little less productive

manpower than that then what we would

naturally have otherwise nutrition

education is a very important aspect of

health and nutrition education that we

would like you to develop in your

training program because nutrition and

health education plays a very important

role in community nutrition it is the

primary method by which we can tackle

all

communitary related problems which arise

from poor hygiene poor sanitation faulty

food habits and so on then what exactly

is nutrition and health education is it

merely giving information imparting

knowledge certainly no it is a way by

which we can translate the information

that we have learned through our books

through our counselors through other

media and translated in to practices

which are healthy which we can adopt in

our day to day life bring about a change

in our attitudes in our beliefs and make

it a part of our make it an integral

part of our personality so that we can

really lead a healthy happy life what

are the causes which lead to a poor

nutrition and health status of an

individual do you think it's just

poverty alone no poverty is just one

aspect but it is basically the ignorant

about what foods help us to have a good

health status help us to fight

infections help us to be more growth

oriented and these are the problems

which would have to be tackled through

nutrition and health education but

nutrition and health education is not

primarily the responsibility of one

single discipline that is either

nutrition educator or a health educator

it comes within the purview of all of us

who are working in the community as

either social scientists or community

development workers and whom do we talk

to is it only the problem which exists

with the poorer sections of the society

is it only with those who are yeasted

deprived socio and both social and

economical

no health and nutritional mal practices

or the poor habits that we have are

rampant in the society in our

communities at all levels irrespective

of their socioeconomic status because we

as individuals are governed by a number

of fads fallacies which are which we

acquire through our older people older

family members and which become a part

of our personality and we are not very

willing to change you would find that

there is a lot of resistance to adopt

new healthy practices have you ever

thought why you know if you have a

headache

if you take an aspirin or any other

tablet the headache goes away and there

is an instant relief but it is not so by

adopting a nutrition and health

practices because the results are not

immediately visible so if there is a lot

of disillusionment in people that well

even if we eat green leafy vegetables or

even if we take glass of milk how does

it improve impact of good healthy habits

is not immediate it is long-term and it

it shows its good impact

only when the habits are sustained over

a period of time so what we see is that

nutrition and health education has to be

pursued over a long period of time

because first we have to impart

knowledge give information and then

enable the people to adopt these

practices create an environment from

which they can draw the information and

draw the resources to improve their

well-being now in this context nutrition

and health education does not remain one

static thing it basically involves three

steps first imparting knowledge second

bringing about a change in the attitudes

of people and third only when the

attitudes are changed it would help them

to adopt it as a practice

as far as knowledge is concerned it is

the easiest to provide because you can

have any number of materials that you

can use to give information you can give

information through multimedia like what

we are doing right away use television

use radios we can also have printed

materials through which we can give

nutrition and health education for the

people who can read we can have posters

we can have charts we can have firms but

giving knowledge is the first step which

is the easiest to handle the second and

a very important aspect of nutrition and

health education is to bring about a

change in the attitudes of people who

would translate this knowledge into the

habits this is extremely difficult why

because people resist any change people

do not want to change and it see no

needs to change so you as a community

nutrition worker or community health

worker become an agent of social change

who motivate them and give them an

insight give them other people's

experiences or give them experiences of

other communities who over a period of

time have changed their health and

nutrition profile so when we talk of the

attitudinal changes that we have to

bring in in our community the

attitudinal changes can be brought into

a community once they have the knowledge

we give them experiences we give them an

experience training which we can go to

which which which we can give them

through a lot of case studies and these

case studies which you can collect from

within the community you would find that

in the in a particular community some

households which would be very clean

having healthy habits of taking right

kind of food and generally you would see

that the children or adults in those

households do not fall sick so

often those are the families that you

could pick up as cases to demonstrate to

the others that if they would follow the

same kind of health practices same kind

of hygiene and environment cleanliness

around them probably they would also be

more healthy and robust then they can be

another method that you can use as a

method of group discussion if you have

group discussion between the people you

want to change and those who have

already been changed because of your

efforts you would find an interchange of

ideas exchange of ideas helps to

motivate people because they feel that

it is from among them that someone has

taken an initiative into having a

healthy habit or developing a healthy

practice which has benefited them so

others who have not yet started

accepting your advice till now may be

motivated because they are seeing an

example before them who has changed

their course of life change their

environment and brought about more

health into their family and if they

feel that swin so is one amongst us they

would be more prompted to take up this

new idea that you are trying to

propagate it's only when there is a

change in the attitude that a change in

the practice can follow but it is very

important for you that you have to keep

on pursuing such people so that when

they're at the threshold of conversion

into healthy practices they do not

backtrack so it is very important that

they continue to have these practices

now when you are as a nutrition and

health educator and will go back to the

first step of imparting nutrition and

health education the first step is that

we have to identify why do we need to

give nutrition and health education

because no one is going to accept you as

a person who just comes and gives them

information because why would they need

this

formation how this information is going

to change their course of life how this

information is going to be important to

them so you have to identify the needs

of the community related to health and

nutrition only once you have identified

the community needs and you have to you

have prioritized the needs that have to

be I address to only then your first

step of community diagnosis for

nutrition and health education would be

over then the second aspect of nutrition

and health education would be to

identify what information needs to be

imparted and how much of information

needs to be imparted if we go into using

jargons big words or abstract ideas

people don't understand because for them

what is important is the concrete

information that they can actually use

into their day-to-day practice then

after we have decided what information

to talk to then we go into the third

aspect that who will give this

information you as a nutrition and

health educator are certainly there to

give this information but you would have

felt at times that there is a need to

take other people along with you be

there be influential in the community

whom you have been able to convince be

they be health functionaries like the

medical officer or the lady health

visitor or the auxilary nurse midwife or

even a traditional birth attendant who

has a credibility with the community so

if you take them along whatever you are

saying also gets a credibility with the

people with whom you have already

established a rabu after we have decided

on whom to take with us for a particular

aspect of nutrition and health education

then we must also decide upon when do we

give this nutrition and health education

you see people are not waiting for us to

come and talk to them

it's not only there needs to be told but

it is also our need to be telling them

at a time when they are in a position to

be comfortably available to get this

information to get the advantage of what

you're trying to tell them so if we go

to them at a time when they are busy

with their daily chores they may not be

interested in listening to you so we

have to find a mutually convenient time

when we all can sit together with the

community people talk to them and give

them ideas in to how they can translate

our information into their daily

practices then we would like to go into

that where do we give this information

venue is very important as far as

nutrition and health education is

concerned for example if you wish to

talk about the importance of small

family it could be a public meeting

anywhere where people can get together

and talk about but when we have to

specifically address to the methods of

family planning contraception then

probably some people like to have some

privacy so maybe a home based education

or a home visit could be more

appropriate or sitting in a small group

where we can have no inhibitions about

asking questions which may not be

possible in a environment where others

are listening on also so dependent upon

the topic we could also decide on the

venue where we have to give this

information but very important aspect of

nutrition and health education is the

methodology how do we go about giving

this nutrition and health education

nutritional health education you see as

we've just discussed is a very tedious

time-consuming task and people are not

interested in it because they don't see

the immediate results of it so we have

to make it more convincing we have to

have supplement to our

talk we have to give support to the

information that we are relating so if

you have to give support to our

information then we have to choose the

methodology and this methodology would

depend upon whether we are just giving

the information or we are talking about

bringing about a change in the attitudes

or bringing about a change in the

practices and this methodology would

also depend upon the target audience

that we have selected for nutrition and

health education for the target audience

we have two types of audience that we

have for nutrition and health education

one which is the directly affected group

that is the pregnant mothers nursing

mothers vulnerable groups like small

children or dollars and girls besides

the others but these are the essential

groups who have to incorporate these

healthy habits but at the outside there

is a very important group of people whom

we have to give nutrition and health

education which I normally called him as

the earning and the governing members of

the group the earning members that is

those who bring in money the heads of

the household they are the ones who have

to be given nutrition and health

education because traditionally they are

the ones would decide what has to be

cooked in the household and how it has

to be cooked so unless until we give

them the information as to the right

kind of food the right kind of health

habits the right kind of personal

hygiene to be maintained unless until

they are the ones who are convinced

probably they may not encourage or

support the vulnerable groups who we are

trying to address to the second

important group on the outside which

influences the these vulnerable groups

or supports these vulnerable groups is

the governing members of the family

these could be the mothers or the

mothers and lo all the all the other

elder members in the household

they are the ones who have been

traditionally telling the housewife the

mother the daughter-in-law daughter or

the small children what they should eat

what they should not eat and why so if

you are able to target our nutrition and

health education to these governing

members of the family they are the ones

who would be able to provide support to

the group to help them develop more

nutrition and health oriented health

habits and when we are addressing to

these governing members and the earning

members then probably our approach to

nutrition and health education would be

different just besides giving the

information we may like to get into a

dialogue with them because then if you

are able to satisfy their whys and why

nots then probably they would be able to

support the vulnerable groups like the

pregnant mother nursing mothers into

eating the right kind of food that was

miss Deepti Gulati talking about

nutrition and health education with this

orientation we are sure now you are

better equipped to take on course three

which deals exclusively with aspects

related to nutrition and health

education if you have gone through the

material you would realize that this

course consists of six blocks block one

focuses on community contact and

participation how to learn with and work

with the community how to establish

community contact how to help people

help themselves these issues are

fundamental to nutrition and health

education and are discussed in block one

as a community educator you would like

to have handy references of what to say

to the community what messages to convey

to them block 2 will help you in this it

provides handy guidelines on message

topic areas on different issues which

you can take up with different

population groups in the community using

this information you can prepare your

own handy reference and use it when you

are in the community now just knowing

about the problem or for that matter

identifying the problem knowing about

the causative factors is just not

sufficient as a responsible person it is

very important that you educate the

people so as to bring about a favorable

change in their attitudes and vlog 3

will help you in this it will help you

develop communication skills

it presents methodologies techniques in

communication which you can develop and

use it in the community setting just

knowing about communication skills is

just not sufficient it is also very

important for you to orient yourself to

strategies approaches which you will

adopt in the community setting it is

very important that you reach out to the

community for instance can you involve

women in the community to convey

messages to other women or other

population groups or can you use

children as change agent give them

simple messages related to nutrition and

health and help them or rather through

them convey them convey these messages

to the younger brother sisters family

members and the community at large yes

all this is possible these are the

strategies used in nutrition and health

education which are emphasized in block

4 and block 5 of this course approaches

strategies which you can use in the

community now you have the communication

skills you have learnt about the

strategies approaches well you are ready

to plan implement your own nutrition

health education

I'm in the community remember and

successful or an effective nutrition

health education program depends on

effective planning preparing an action

plan is very important block six will

help you in this

it presents handy guidelines on

different measures or steps you would

take in planning implementing a

nutrition health education program

having implemented your program you

would also like to know whether the

program succeeded or not for which

evaluation is important block six also

presents information on this regard

these six locks of the course are a

total package the objective of this

course is to help you develop

communication skills help you practice

good methods techniques approaches

strategies in nutrition and health

education and overall help you become

effective nutrition and health educators

in the community

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