UGC Asks Universities to Keep a Tab on Students’ Health Indexes

Call it UGC's concerns for the health of students or a move to ban junk food, the nodal higher education body in its recent directives wrote to 600 universities across the country asking them to keep a tab on the health indices of the students while collecting data on their body mass index, ratio of waist and hip, weight and other related information.

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Officials of the UGC maintained that the move to ban the junk food would help reduce obesity levels and help the students to live a better and healthy life. The proposed measures as part of the move include-

• Staff and faculty members of the Universities would have to be trained under its orientation programmes on health issues
• Student welfare departments will have to conduct counselling sessions on nutrition and exercise
• Workshops will need to be conducted on healthy habits

Most of the campus canteens dish out a mix of both junk food and nutritious meals. Some of the popular choices of the students are - french fries, rolls, cutlets, hot samosas, chicken biryani, masala dosa, north and south Indian meals.

A student of Bangalore University said that the university is spoilt for choice!

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Malavika M, a postgraduate student of Christ University said that students eagerly wait for the next academic year to find out which caterer has joined the canteens of the University. The University has a cafeteria that serves fruits, sandwiches and juices. It is not that students are eating junk all the time.

For the students of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, its canteens offer vegetarian, non-vegetarian and junk food. Several students say that they prefer both junk and fast food to accommodate their time in busy schedules of the day.