We are excited to introduce our June Sampson Foundation winner, Parul Tewari.  Parul will receive free tuition to our Health Coach Training Program thanks to our partnership with The Sampson Foundation. Sampson Foundation winners are chosen based on their passion for health and wellness and desire to use an Integrative Nutrition education to better their community!

Here’s a bit of Parul’s story in her own words: 

“Although India’s GDP is growing, it faces twin challenges when it comes to nutrition – malnourishment and rising obesity leading to a spike in non-communicable diseases.

According to 2017 The Global Nutrition Report, which assessed 140 countries, India was said to be suffering from ‘significant burdens’ of three types of malnutrition: childhood stunting, anemia in women of reproductive age, and overweight adult women. What was perhaps not mentioned in the report was that mental health issues also affect about 36% of the population. These numbers are alarming for a country having more than 1.3 billion people.  

The solutions however, I believe, do not lie in a lack of food resources but the lack of awareness, access, and consumption of the right kinds of foods. While widespread poverty is an undeniable reality in my part of the world, nutritional deficiencies seem to be cutting across all economic and social classes. This indicates that better education and higher incomes have not helped people make better food choices. The lack of awareness about and taboo around mental health is even greater.

As a part of the Centre for Science and Environment, a public interest research and advocacy organization based in New Delhi, India, my work is to communicate the urgency of development that is both sustainable and equitable. One of our focus areas is dedicated to bringing back the culture of good food – something that has been destroyed by the age of convenience and manufactured foods. Food to us is much more than just taste – it is about nutrition, safety (free of toxics like pesticides and antibiotics), and preserving nature’s biodiversity as also an overall sense of wellness – both for us humans and the environment.

Apart from that, the Centre has also actively started reporting on and talking about depression, hypertension, and anxiety issues – something that not many are comfortable talking about.

 Becoming a Health Coach will help me educate myself and empower me to become an agent of change. It is my personal mission to help individuals and communities achieve overall wellness.”