WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY-2013

(Eat with ecology in mind')

 

The theme of the World Environment Day, on June 5, this year has been decided as 'Think, Eat and Save'.The aim behind keeping this theme for the special day is to discourage the wastage of food and to promote the food loss campaign, encouraging people to reduce their food print. With the promotion of this theme on June 5, the environment lovers will persuade people to think before eating and hence contributing in saving the environment.

As per the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), every year around 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted across the world. If the similar amount of food could be saved, it could serve the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.Environmentalists claim there was an urgent need to create awareness among people about the food wastage in the world. They said people should be made aware about the environmental impact of the food choices they make. As per the experts one-third of the global food production is either wasted or lost. Food waste is an enormous drain of natural resources and hence a contributor to negative environmental impacts.

On the World Environment Day this year, the city denizens will be asked to take corrective measures right from their homes and reduce food wastage, save money, minimise the environmental impact of food production and force food production processes to become more efficient. As per the experts, everyone should select foods that have less environmental impact, such as organic foods that do not use chemicals in the production process.Joint director, medical health, Major (Dr) BP Singh points out, "Health status of an individual, a community or a nation is affected by the interplay and integration of two types of environment," and added, "That improvement of mankind by improving his heredity is called-Eugenics and improvement of mankind by improving his environment is called-Euthenics.

He further added, "While improving heredity is not in our hands but the second option is definitely in our domain and wisdom. The evidence shows that environment risk factors plays a vital role in more than 80% of the diseases regularly reported by the World Health Organisation (WHO).Globally, around 25% of the deaths and total diseases can be attributed to the negative impact on environment. In children, however, the environmental risk factors can account for more than 33% of the disease burden. Therefore, it is necessary to keep the environment healthy to have future healthy kids.

                                          Prof. John Kurakar