UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Priyanka Chopra, Engages with Adolescents to Highlight the Importance of Anaemia Prevention

Priyanka Chopra, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, today engaged with a group of adolescents in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, and discussed important issues affecting their lives including nutrition and, particularly, ways to prevent anaemia. With this interaction, the Bollywood power player and international recording artist, takes her support to the issue of adolescent girls in India one step forward.

“Anaemia is a key health concern facing young girls and boys across the country but it is something that has a simple, workable solution. A blue iron Folic Acid (IFA) tablet once a week and deworming tablets every six months. It really is that simple. We need to create awareness about how these simple steps can have a huge and long-lasting impact in this generation of girls and boys and in the generations to come,” Priyanka Chopra, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, stated after reiterating her commitment to the cause of adolescents and showing her appreciation for being able to spend quality time with the group of adolescents in the City of Lakes, as Bhopal is known.

India has the largest number of young people aged 10-19 years in the world – 253 million out of 1.2 billion. This age group – referred as adolescents – comprise one-fourth of India’s population and are key drivers of India’s future economic growth. However, 56 per cent of girls and 30 per cent of boys in the age group of 15-19 years in India suffer from anaemia. This means that 1 out of 2 young girls and 1 out of 3 young boys are anemic.

“Research shows that after the first year of life, adolescence is the second highest growth spurt period. Adolescents, if fed and cared well, gain up to 50 per cent of their adult weight, more than 20% of their adult height, and 50% of their adult bone mass during this period. Improving the nutrition of adolescent girls today secures the nutrition of children tomorrow,” explained James Gitau, Deputy Representative, UNICEF India.

Anaemia adversely affects the mental and physical capacity of young boys and girls, retarding their physical development, making them fatigued and breathless, and often affecting their memory and energy to perform daily tasks.

Iron deficient diets – year after year – perpetuate the inter-generational cycle of anaemia whereby anemic women give birth to children with low body iron stores, with devastating consequences to children’s health and development.

“This is a critical issue for the Government of India, hence we are implementing a Weekly Iron folic acid supplementation (WIFS) programme for school-going adolescent boys and girls and out-of school girls across the country” said Dr. Sushma Dureja, Deputy Commissioner Adolescent Health Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

The WIFS programme has four components: (a) supervised weekly iron and folic acid supplementation comprising 100 mg of elemental iron and 500 μg of folic acid; (b) screening for moderate/severe anaemia and referral to nearest health facility, (c) deworming prophylaxis (400 mg albendazole) six months apart for the prevention of helminthic infestations; and (c) nutrition and health education to encourage consumption of locally available iron-rich food and preventing helminthic infestations.

In Madhya Pradesh, the WIFS programme reaches out to 7,243,132 adolescents – , comprising of both in school adolescent boys and girls in classes 6^th to 12^th and out of school adolescent girls between 10-19 years.