The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Exhibition highlights dangers of junk food

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 27, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Exhibition highlights dangers of junk food

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, MARCH 26. Children looked intently at the display boards featuring the dangers of `junk food', read the fine print about unhealthy eating habits and came up with questions.

``Pizzas are bad? But they have vegetables in them.''

The exhibition to create awareness about childhood obesity, diabetes and nutritional deficiencies at the Corporation Middle School at Nungambakkam, slowly turned into a question-answer session.

``Those boards actually made them think differently,'' said A. Kavitha, assistant coordinator of Consumer Action Group, one of the organisers.

And she was eager to explain why despite the presence of a few slices of vegetables in a pizza, the `maida' base would cause more harm. Or too much of ice creams would slow down metabolism though they have milk in them.

CAG in association with the Pasumai Thayagam decided to organise the exhibition in Corporation schools after they found more schoolchildren consuming chocolate, chips and soft drinks.

``Certain brand of chips are available for Rs. 3. And catchy advertisements make these students think that it is cool to eat them. They do not know the ill-effects,'' Ms. Kavitha explained.

``This information is useful for teachers as well,'' said the headmistress, A. Parameshwari, pointing to the board listing out the dangers of excess consumption of salt and sugar.

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