Teach children the importance of health and wellbeing

On the 1^st of August, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be conferred Lokmanya Tilak National Award in Pune. The Award is named after Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the first nationalist leader who strongly advocated self-rule with the slogan “Swaraj is my birthright I shall have it.”  Unlike the most other first-generation national leaders who happened to be foreign educated, Tilak had completed his education in India. He has a distinct name in the India’s freedom struggle for his ingenuity.

Tilak, in his autobiography writes that when he was a teenager, as he had started to understand the colonial rule and India’s lack of freedom, he reflected how he can contribute to the country. To his shock, he realized that he was too weak physically to do anything for himself, forget about the nation. He immediately resolved to start doing exercises and grow in strength physically. And, the rest is history to all of us. He endured jail in India and Burma but never compromised on his goal to see India as free country, and went on to be a prominent freedom fighter.

There is a lesson for all of us: students, teachers, parents and everyone else to learn from the life of Tilak. Health and fitness are important for everyone; more so for the students who are aspiring to achieve something in life. Parents are the first role models for a child to think about health and wellbeing. If parents follow a healthy routine like taking healthy food and doing some physical activity children are likely to imbibe it, and make it part of their life. Even if the parents can’t afford to follow an active lifestyle, they can enthuse children by talking to them about the importance of health and encouraging them to include some sort of physical activity in their daily life.

For the kind of hectic academic calendar and rigorous routine students have, it’s better if they have some daily dose of stress buster. What could be better than some sort of physical activity for a stress reliever? Encourage your child to walk, jog, run or swim, or play a sport of their choice for an hour a day. If they are keen, join them in a sporting academy for their preferred sport.

Parents have a significant role to play in the healthy and active lifestyle of children, and they must do their bit for the overall wellbeing of a child.