NEWS

Namaste life – Dr Meena Shah is conducting a series of workshops on Water and Vector borne diseases in the slum areas of Ahmedabad with Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.Download full details here

INTRODUCATION

It is said that the twenty first century and its people are a slave of  the ‘M’ factor.  This ‘M’ factor, representing money, has captured the attention and the passion of people across the globe.  Such has been its impregnable reign that the ‘H’ factor representing health seems to be compromised at its cost.  People today are increasingly succumbing to the incessant pressure of this world defeating power. Stress at work has sky rocketed.  So much so that it has forced many youngsters, in the work force, to take classes on ways to tackle this stress caused by stiff targets, peer pressure, social standing as also the greed for success.  The old culture of an eight hours scheduled work has existed till now but only on paper.  People are being made to work for ten to twelve hours on a rather regular frequency.  This has led to an escalating number of people tending to take to junk food.  This is especially the case when both partners are working; leaving neither with enough time to devote to healthy cooking and other related activities.

One gets no point on guessing what the repercussions of these changes in lifestyle have been.  Some research reports as well as other studies conducted on some employees as well as employers of a few large firms reflect that the number of non performance days of the employees have increased over the last decade.  These non performance days include the days when the employee has either not attended the office due to medical reasons as also the days when his/her contribution in the office has been minimal to nil due to various reasons ranging from poor health to lack of motivation.  People in their early ages are becoming victims of fatal lifestyle related diseases like Blood Pressure and Diabetes.  The age when one could expect a heart attack has dipped from the late sixties to the early twenties now, with a spree of heart attack cases among college students and young executives surfacing lately, with many even losing their lives in the process.

However, with the world crying foul over the unprecedented effects that the gloom of stress has created; there is always a silver lining over this grey cloud- that of taking to health and to befriend it, slitting ties with unhealthy habits and schedules.  It is never too late to get back one’s health.  Following the path of the same belief, Dr. Meena Shah has dedicated many years to the creation of health related intelligence among people and getting them back on the track of healthy living.  Being a doctor by qualification and a trainer by profession; Dr. Meena Shah has conducted over 2000 health, lifestyle and stress management related seminars and workshops; thus, touching thousands of lives in the process.  All through the journey, she has continuously emphasized on the mantra ‘Health by choice and not by chance’ and has got people to appreciate the same, leading to higher health standards among them.

Dr. Meena Shah understands the current scenario where people spend most of their time in their offices; and thus, takes up the route of providing health related training within the company premises (also known as corporate training) to reach out to these busy executives.  Dr. Shah would have conducted numerous such corporate wellness programmes where the employees of the companies are provided with guidance on better lifestyle and healthcare.  This corporate training of hers is bifurcated into various relevant issues affecting the society today ranging from women’s health to proper diet habits.  Dr. Shah also appreciates the limitation that an individual faces in reaching out to a population of a billion and has thus also spent substantial amount of time and work in educating and creating trainers who could provide this health training to more and more people.  This training of the trainers programme, under her able guidance, has been able to train more than five hundred trainers till date, who in turn would have trained at least double this number, thus creating a cascading effect to reach to every depth of the Indian society.  Providing training to the canteen staff of offices on healthy cooking has also been on her agenda.

Her work with the pharma industry and the food & beverage industry is of special reference as she has managed to create a long lasting impact on various firms under these two industries.   Her urge to send the message of health to as many people as possible gives her the motivation to go on and on and continuously strive for new innovations which could help her achieve her goal.  Using the television media has been her latest and highly successful venture which has given her an interface with many keen followers of her show telecasted regularly on a popular regional satellite channel.