I believe I am more health conscious now than I ever was, says 16 year old Zaira. She has recently finished the FRIEND Governance program in her community, along with her mother. Zaira says she used to tip the scale at 65kg over four months ago, but with the help of learning’s gleaned during the course, she has cut back on junk food and sugar, taken up regular exercise, managing to get even her grandmother to join her on her walks and lost around 10 kg since then. “In fact I have be-come so health conscious that I don‟t even eat meat any more.“ I feel happy and healthy, but when I look at my mom I worry a bit, she takes a lot of sugar with her tea, that cannot be healthy when we look at the threat of increasing lifestyle diseases.”
