Dr. Nonye Soludo, the governor of Anambra State’s wife, has urged Nigerians to adopt healthy lifestyles, nutritious diets, clean environments, fundamental life skills, and morally upright behavior in order to prolong life and fend off diseases.
Soludo revealed that she has started a healthy living program in all of the nation’s schools with the goal of encouraging youngsters to lead healthy lifestyles and instilling in them the value of eating locally grown foods.
She spoke to the media on Friday in Awka to promote her project, the “Healthy Living with Nonye Soludo Campaign,” and she urged Nigerians to stay away from chemicalized food since it harms the body’s organs.
She added that the program had started in elementary and secondary schools with the intention of encouraging kids to adopt a healthy lifestyle so that as they grew older, they would be aware of certain things to avoid and how to maintain a balanced diet.
She said, “I started championing ‘Healthy living with Nonye Soludo’ 10 years ago. I give talks on healthy lifestyles and good diets with our local foods.
“I want to bring the message home to our people because we need to be healthy to achieve a liveable and prosperous homeland.
“I have started forming healthy living clubs in our schools to inculcate the culture of healthy lifestyles and catch them young so that they can grow into responsible adults.
“Our children need to get addicted to eating healthy, doing physical exercises and environmental hygiene to stay healthy, rather than get addicted to their phones and social media.”
In order to grow and consume natural foods, she urged Nigerians to adopt backyard farming instead than eating as much manufactured and chemicalized food.
“Our mission is to mobilise everybody, every critical sector in the society to make healthy living a culture. People should realise that if they keep dumping chemicalised foods on their bodies, the organs will be suffering until they make conscious efforts to clean up the system by eating healthy.
“Our local foods are readily available and cheap. They are also energy-giving, healing and medicinal to our body systems, organs and general health.
“We need to start avoiding processed foods and make conscious efforts to eat well with more grains of fibre and do 30 minutes of exercise daily.
“We are partnering with religious and community leaders to drive this message home within Anambra and beyond,” she added.
According to her, Nigerians need to also embrace walking and cycling in order to reduce vehicular air pollution and promote a healthy life style.
“The emissions from our vehicles are polluting the air and environment; and this is hazardous to human health. We need to introduce and embrace cycling to reduce carbon emissions and exposure.
“Cycling is a clean mode of transport and a fitness choice with health benefits. Sometime we need to pack our cars and walk more, especially if we are not going long distance. All over the world, people are talking about healthy living and it is contagious, we need to do more in this regard,” she noted.