Healthy lifestyle, Happy Life!

Many Indians have started to believe leading a healthy lifestyle will have a knock-off effect on their personal happiness. There has been quite a bit of publicity regarding the rise in lifestyle diseases among Indians, and, thus, growing awareness of the importance of being healthy.

We know that as the Indian middle-class has expanded, so has its girth, the result of self-indulgent, sedentary and undisciplined living. We also know that India is the centre of the world’s unfolding epidemic of so-called lifestyle diseases, specifically diabetes and cardiovascular ailments.

Dr Agnes Electra Chlebinska, Physician, author, international speaker and the founder of Lifestyle & Preventive Medicine said, “According to WHO, four out of five chronic disease deaths today are in low and middle income countries, like India. We also know that people in these countries (including India) tend to develop diseases at younger ages, and therefore suffer longer with complications. We estimate now that more than 60% of all deaths related to chronic diseases are preventable. And according to available research, it is estimated that 60 - 80 % of all chronic diseases (dependent on diseases) is related to lifestyle, rather than to genetic factors. The rapid increase in the number of overweight and obese people is one of the factors contributing towards developing chronic diseases.”

She added, “For the past twenty years doctors and researchers around the world have been looking for solutions to the rising problem of chronic diseases. And there is a consensus that there are four areas of our life that affects our health and which are responsible for development of chronic diseases and premature deaths; nutrition, physical activity, stress, relationship and social life.”

Nirmaan B.D. Bangur Endowment of Kolkata, the charitable trust, addressing various social causes has organised this Happy Bootcamp for the first time in India.

The workshop took place in Crow Field of Jungle Crows Foundation.

It is a global health, fitness and social initiative and it is one of the projects of nonprofit organization Lifestyle and Preventive Medicine by this couple.

David W Evans, Lifestyle Medicine specialist,an author, and an international speaker said, “We started Happy Bootcamps over seven years ago. When we first started in London we only had few people turning up.  Within 6 months we saw that the numbers started to increase.  We decided to reach one billion people worldwide and spread a message of health and happiness through activity, connectivity and education. We went to 12 different countries (Philippines, Malaysia, Germany, Sweden, US etc.). Because of the health crises, the General Sports authority of Saudi Arabia invited Happy Bootcamps to launch a pilot project across the kingdom. Within only a few weeks, we mobilised Saudi’s largest fitness providers, universities and hospitals, involving thousands of people and turning Happy Bootcamps into a national phenomena.”

When we asked why Nirmaan thought of hosting such an event in the city, Mrs Manju Bangur, the organiser said “The Happy Bootcamp is free for everyone and will be an ongoing activity every Sunday 7am to 8am. The goal is to spread awareness about the benefits of exercise and active lifestyle and make the society healthy.”