Health and Nutrition Videos & Android Apps
Knowledge in the hands of those who need it most. What every health worker, family and community has a right to know.

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Malnutrition in India

Over half of India’s women are anaemic and one in every five is underweight, reveals National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16). Not surprisingly these women — underfed and overworked — often give birth to stunted and malnourished children. Furthermore, nearly one in every three Indian children under the age of five is stunted and underweight for their age.

Today, nearly every second child in India is a victim of malnutrition. It means they are physically and mentally weak due to which they are targets to many ailments, deformities, disabilities and allergies affecting normal growth mentally and physically.

The vast majority of Indian families and women do not follow the following practices:

• 75% of new mothers are anaemic and most put on less weight during pregnancy than they should. This leads to unhealthy foetal growth, low birth weight and non-genetic congenital abnormalities in babies.
  
  
• Colostrum is essential because it prepares the baby's digestive system for the mature milk that the baby will receive in the next few days. Colostrum is rich in nutrients such as zinc, calcium and vitamins.
  
  
• Exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months reduces infant mortality due to protection from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhoea or pneumonia, and helps for a quicker recovery during illness.
  
  
• From the seventh month, breast milk is no longer enough to meet the nutritional needs of the infant. Timely, adequate, frequent and appropriate complementary feeding should be started.

Child malnutrition is both the result of economic conditions and poor nutritional awareness. Nutrition education has been recognized as one of the long-term sustainable interventions essential to tackle the problem of malnutrition.

It is important to teach healthy eating habits to a child early as these are critical years of development and have a major impact on the health of the child in the future. Nutrition education should begin as the child enters her/his preschool years.

Educating Mothers

Nutrition knowledge in the hands of those who need it most!

Women have no health and nutrition handbook or reference guide. Now they can follow simple practices and prevent the vast majority of maternal and child mortality and malnutrition.

HealthPhone™ is leveraging the rapidly increasing penetration of smartphones in the country to educate millions of girls and women between 13 and 35 years of age and their families on better health and nutrition practices.

• Allows repeated use/exposure – Watching, pausing, rewinding of videos allows for message comprehension
  
  
• Enables Privacy – Cultural issues that lead to shyness of girls and women are overcome, enables mother to daughter transfer of high quality knowledge and adolescent girls are covered

HealthPhone Android Apps

Poshan

Available in Assamese, Bengali, English, Garo, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Khasi, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Mizo, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu​

The Poshan | Nutrition videos, included within each of these apps, address issues of status of women, the care of pregnant women and children under two, breastfeeding and the importance of a balanced diet, health and simple changes in nutritional care practices that can notably enhance nutrition levels.

These mobile apps provide health and nutrition education through repetition of messages using drama vignettes of children with problems due to previous malnutrition – and the emphasis that the damage done by malnutrition in early life is largely permanent. Produced by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India and UNICEF, this series of 41 videos reinforce the following key messages:

• Expecting mothers should get the correct diet and 25% more than usual.
  
  
• Mother’s first milk is the best, do not throw it away, make sure the child gets it.
  
  
• For the first 6 months the child should only be fed mother’s milk and nothing else.
  
  
• When the child enters the 7th month, balance mother’s milk with a nutritious diet.

Food and Nutrition

Available in Assamese, Bengali, English, Garo, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Khasi, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Mizo, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu​

It is important to teach healthy eating habits to a child early as these are critical years of development and have a major impact on the health of the child in the future. Nutrition education should begin as the child enters her/his preschool years.

For a mother to teach her child the benefits of healthy eating it is necessary for her to be empowered with the knowledge herself.

Produced by the Food and Nutrition Board, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, these 11 videos, in 18 Indian languages, reinforce the following key messages:

• Adequate Complementary Feeding
• Anaemia: Blood and Iron Deficiency
• Importance of a Balanced Diet
• Correct Norms of Infant & Young Child Feeding
• Importance of Infant and Young Child Nutrition
• Iodine: The Importance of Iodised Salt
• Nutrition of the Child
• Vitamin A
• Navjaat ki Suraksha
• Diet During Pregnancy
• Healthcare during Pregnancy

Nutrition Handbook for the Family

Available in Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu​

These apps are adapted from the Nutrition Handbook for the Family published by FAO-Nepal. With special thanks to Translators Without Borders who support humanitarian work around the world and help save lives.

These apps reinforce the following key messages:

• Personal and household hygiene
• Keeping food safe and clean
• Foods are very important for the body
• Iron makes the body strong
• Vitamin A keeps the body healthy
• Iodine makes the body function properly
• Food for pregnant women and breast-feeding mothers
• Feeding babies aged 0-6 months
• Feeding young children aged over 6 months
• Feeding school-age children and youth
• Food and care for older people
• Feeding sick people
• Preventing and managing malnutrition

All mobile apps have been developed in partnership with HealthPhone by ​The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Hyderabad, a ​research and development organization under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.

Once installed, these apps work offline; they do not require a connection to a mobile network.

We hope that these videos and apps will contribute to improving the nutritional status of people, especially women and young children, by increasing their knowledge through group sharing and discussion promoted by frontline health workers and other organized groups and communities.