Vivek Ashok, undergrad in Arts & Sciences

Vivek Ashok seeks to address the issue of both over- and under-nutrition in Nepalese youth by teaching children and adults living on the periphery of the Kathmandu Valley Region of Nepal, the importance of basic health and physiology.

Ashok seeks to create and implement a sustainable multi-component health curriculum teaching secondary students, ages 14-17, and parents about ways to achieve a healthy weight and ways to promote a healthy lifestyle at home. Additionally, Ashok will assess the risk of underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity of the children using anthropometric measures such as body nass index and waist/hip ratio.

Over the course of the spring until June, Ashok will develop a curriculum to teach health effects of under and over nutrition as well as preventative behaviors that are culturally meaningful and appropriate. The class will be taught once a week for eight weeks at two secondary schools affiliated with the Santi School.

Ashok will engage students by illustrating both immediate and long term effects of behavioral change while making them a part of the educational effort. In order to promote a culturally adapted healthy lifestyle, he will train secondary students to be educational aides to teach parents and younger children about concepts covered in class. Together they will design a primary school health curriculum and promote opportunities for physical activity and sports in primary and secondary schools. The students will also craft informational packets to present to adults.