Addressing the GAP!

Getting Closer to Mega Project

Being a Nutritionist and a Public Health professional, I plan to work on primordial prevention strategies.

Busy lifestyles and lack of nutritional awareness in parents result in the provision of imbalanced and unhealthy lunch boxes which adversely affects a child’s health. The most common problems are malnutrition, which includes both over and undernourishment, and increased risk of communicable and non-communicable diseases.

I carried out a step-wise procedure to find a solution to this problem.

STEP 1: Collecting the data
I couldn’t click the the pictures because the schools are closed so I took a trip down the memory lane. I recalled the lunchboxes and patterns of students I saw when I worked in a school for a few days. I searched for similar pictures from the internet which are as follows:

A lunchbox full of unhealthy Carbohydrates

Nothing but processed protein and oil. An imbalanced meal.

Outside every school. Extremely Unhygienic and Unhealthy.

The adverse effects of these diets are as follows:

Undernourishment

Over-nourishment

Lethargy and tiredness

STEP 2: A Quick Short Survey

I called a few people whose children are enrolled in high socioeconomic schools. The first one was the mother of 3 children studying in pre-nursery, One and Three. The second mother was a single parent having 1 child studying in Second grade. The third has her toddler enrolled in kindergarten.

My Question was: If Your child gets a balanced nutritious lunch box from school, supervised by a nutritionist and it would be cost-effective, will you purchase it?

Following are similar positive responses I got:

1. If improvement in the health of our child is ensured.
2. Adding the price in fee challan would be better.
3. Meals should be fresh.
4. Providing meals under the supervision of a nutritionist. Keeping a check and balance on calories.
5. We would like our morning fatigue to be reduced.

Step 3: Discussion with my business partner

I made a business pitch and presented it to my brother. He has a degree in business and 3 years of experience. This is basically an entrepreneurial idea so he gave me insights about the idea as to how we can go about it. What should be the scale? What will be the initial stage and the second stage? Details about the service and the products I plan to introduce and how to market them.

Time for an Honest Revelation

I never had any interest in any kind of business. The area of my interest was to serve the community and that’s why I become a Public Health Nutritionist. From the past few months, I have been observing that creating awareness among masses is not enough. There should be some practical input as well. So while brainstorming last night with my brother, we came up with this idea. I feel like I now actually want to make this happen. I want it to work. This experience of identifying a problem in my community also helped me to polish my area of interest and figure out a practical way through which I can play my part as a public health nutritionist.