Junk food out of some universities

A number of universities and colleges in the country have informed the UGC about their decision to ban junk food in their cafeterias, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Dec 10, 2007, 01:56:48 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In an effort to provide healthy food to the students, a number of universities and colleges in the country have informed the University Grants Commission (UGC) about their decision to ban junk food in their cafeterias.

The UGC had recently sent a circular advising universities and colleges to ban junk food and aerated beverages in their canteens. The ban list includes fizzy drinks, cutlets, fish fries and fish fingers, burgers and hot dogs.

The UGC officials, however, said these colleges have not banned all kinds of junk food as prescribed by the commission, especially the aerated drinks. It was because of opposition from the students and even the faculty members, an official said.

The UGC advisory was based on a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on the adverse impact of junk food on children’s health, which includes obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and even cancer.

A study conducted by Dr Anoop Mishra of New Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences had found that children who consume junk food are at an early risk of developing diabetes and heart diseases. About 33 per cent of nearly 1,850 schoolchildren who were interviewed, eat junk food three or more times a week, irrespective of their economic status, the study found.

The findings was shared by the Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss with the HRD minister Arjun Singh, who asked the UGC to send a health advisory to the universities and colleges.

According to the UGC, the positive indication is that the educational institutions are willing to prohibit sale of unhealthy food in the canteens.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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