Health and Fitness of students should be every school’s priority: Ganesh Remani

The rate of growth of obesity and Type II diabetes amongst young children and teenagers is quite alarming. India will have over 17 million obese children by 2015.Children in metro’s and Tier I cities are more prone to lifestyle diseases due to the reducing outdoor play time, increased indoor activities like TV viewing, mobile phones, and other gadgets and also because of improper food habits.

The only planned exercise schedule children have is the Physical Training (P.T.) period that schools have once or twice a week. This amount of exercise is insufficient at their age and it requires a more planned session to achieve a more effective and positive impact on the child’s overall health.

Khelfit, a fitness app, has introduced a fitness program that is designed to create a more engaging, effective and fun model for students that can be monitored and helps a parent keep a track on their child’s growth.

Ganesh Remani, Founder of Khelfit, marathon runner and father of two, informs on the need for effective fitness programs for children.

Q) What was the thought behind launching a fitness app for students?

Ganesh: Changing lifestyle, bad eating habits, reduced outdoor activities and the dependency on electronic gadgets have deteriorated a child’s overall development. India is the second largest in the world in childhood obesity and with an early onset of obesity, it is likely to translate into a high cumulative incidence of type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease.

Schools engage students through the physical training period with various physical activities and also inculcate the elements of necessities of fitness. However, the challenges schools face is the importance that parents attribute to the Physical Training period in the competitive academic environment and hence the extent of focus from all stakeholders is on the downward spiral.

We would like to work with the schools in their efforts by bringing in structured and measurable exercise regime that improves the overall development of the child with an element of fun for the child to get excited and interested. Further, our application allows logging various aspects of fitness which can help the school to analyze and engage with the parents so as to take necessary corrective action.

Q) Is the student program an offline/online model?

Ganesh: We have both online and offline programs for students.

Our online program is a product subscription program that helps in the assimilation of information and tracking progress that can enable fitness habit formation.

Our offline program for schools is where we execute our structured curriculum for various grades during school hours. Every student in the class participates in our program which is the funfilled cluster of games arranged to meet the desired goal at the end of each session.

Q) How can parents keep a track of their child’s performance through this app?

Ganesh: Overweight/ Obesity is not a problem that happens overnight nor it can be resolved overnight. Hence, we have built an application where parents can log their child’s daily routine on 6 important parameters and monitor the progress of their child’s health. Khelfit is the handy tool that every parent will have during the growing years of their child

Q) Schools normally offer post-school hour programs like swimming and Gymnast for kids? How would you compete with them?

Ganesh: We are not looking at competing with post-school programs as these programs do not cater to each and every student in the school. After school hour programs are voluntary based on the interest of the child which not all kids participate for a variety of reasons.

We have a philosophy of ‘No Kid Left Behind’. Our offline school program offers the structured program during school hours to all students across age groups which is fun oriented and independent of skill. Our program involves grade wise circuits (cluster of games) that engage every student to compete with self and has an aspiration to be fit.