Extracurricular activities: the way to succeed beyond the classroom

Extracurricular activities: the way to succeed beyond the classroom

Students are expected to study. But successful students are expected to be all-rounders. They manage academics and extracurricular activities equally well and the balance helps them grow into accomplished individuals. But why, you may ask? The answer is that extracurricular activities for students are not just a change from traditional classroom learning but a lesson in itself irrespective of the level of students. Be it high school students or university students, activities beyond the classroom give students the platform to practice their learning.

While young children find activities like theatre and performance attractive ways to have fun outside the classroom, older students find it extremely encouraging to flaunt their confidence. This is also true for students who otherwise feel pressured in the classroom or are unable to stand out. Extracurricular activities become the voice of these students and a way for them to be noticed among their colleagues and teachers.

The advantages of such an exposure are quite obvious. Students learn to do what they will do in real life. As adults know, most real life situations don’t involve sitting and listening to teachers for extended hours. They involve speaking, writing, performing, basically being active. And extracurricular activities give young people the opportunity to do just that.

Today, young people find solace in technology inside and outside the classroom, both. Thus, the need to promote healthy extracurricular activities has become more pressing. The merits of technology for students are well-established but they should not replace the role of physical activity or exploring their interests in students’ life. Sports and creative activities can in fact facilitate students in learning more about themselves.

To facilitate their children’s participation and strength in extracurricular activities parents are always on the hunt for nutritious supplement. In this regard, I have trusted Horlicks throughout raising my daughter for a boost of nutrition along with her meals.  It is easy to forgo nutritious food and get caught up in demanding academic schedules. On top of this when students get involved in extracurricular activities they find it difficult to remain on schedule and end up having health problems. Including Horlicks in their diet, which has become synonymous with a nutrition enhancer for school going children, will supplement the vitals they are missing in their food. It is also difficult to introduce new products to children’s diet as they are picky about taste but the fact that Horlicks is available in flavors like Malt and Chocolate becomes an incentive for children to consume it.

I have fond memories of sharing Horlicks with my little one all through her early years. As I return back from office exhausted, I would quickly stir some Horlicks with milk in a big mug for both of us and we enjoyed while she is settled on my lap. All refreshed to catch up on family time later the evening.

Extracurricular activities have strong ties with academics if schools and colleges develop them in a certain way and parents encourage children to be a part of them. These ties not only help in personal development but have direct links to how careers unfold. Culturally we place a lot of responsibility on young people’s shoulders to get A’s and top the class but we also need to extend our goals and advice to students to join as many extracurricular activities as they can manage so they are better adapted to the world. Instead of stressing on reproducing exact knowledge we need to make them adept at applying that knowledge in the work they do, in their daily lives and personal interactions. This will ensure we have all-rounded practical individuals as part of Pakistan’s future and not robots programmed to just know everything. 

This blog is sponsored by Horlicks

Just Eat Right-Do Not Diet

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 Just Eat Right.....Dont Diet

We often hear people talking about dieting.

They are discussing how to make a diet plan for themselves. Make a new year resolution to loose weight.  Share medical reports for high blood sugar or cholesterol and try to follow a diet, figuring out what to eat?

But what is diet anyway? My answer mostly is, it is nothing, a self-deception. Even if we develop that courage and will power to go on a diet, it is like a time based medical treatment or therapy. Once we reach our goals, we go back to same unhealthy eating pattern and put on all those pounds, fats and sugar back.

There is only ‘healthy eating’ or ‘un-healthy eating’, nothing in between. “Dieting’ does not exist.

We will loose weight only if we follow a healthy lifestyle and eating habits. All this can only happen if we stop this obsession with dieting and just focus on eating healthy forever.

Unfortunately when we take one of our colleagues to the hospital emergency as they suffer a sudden cardiac seizure, help mom check her blood sugar or return back all gloomy after the burial of a dear uncle who passed away during a cancer treatment, we don’t believe that it can be us in the same situation one day.

We continue with our endless desire to feed our taste buds without thinking what all those unhealthy food is doing to our bodies.

We constantly make excuses for eating high-carb, cholesterol laden, oil drenched meals, ordering from every new fast food chain. We forget to drink water and are too busy for workouts.

In the name of gourmet eating we keep frying our food and order the same at restaurants. Add sugar, salt to our food and go for refined grains.

We find raw vegetable bland and cumbersome to eat but love to eat expensive cuts of steaks as often as we want because we can afford, adding sides of potatoes justifying it as vegetable.

We want to keep the tradition alive and eat curries bathed in ghee, organ meat and mouth watering fried parathas and pooris. We love to juice all our fruits destroying their fibre, and then complain for various gastro-intestinal discomforts.

We forget that our bones are leeched of the important calcium as we drink cans after cans of sodas.

Eating this way clearly leads to malnutrition, yes we are not getting the right nutrient in the right amount that makes us malnutrition individuals at high risk of developing many disease.

Malnutrition does not only mean the starving population of sub-Saharan areas shown in Carter’s award-winning photo.

Any one of us can be suffering from malnutrition with that belly fat and unhealthy eating habits which lead to different disease, ranging from obesity, cancer, cardio vascular complications, diabetes, GI tract complications. 

So what needs to be done?

-       Get your medical check up, blood profile, X-rays and all if you are above 40

-       Getting a Vitamin D and Calcium levels tests are crucial for all ages in Pakistani population, since these play an important role in body functions

-       Find out if you are overweight or within normal range

-       Smoking plays a key role in your mortality and health, don’t even think, just quit if you smoke

-       Establish the daily calorie requirement for your age, height, weight. The many online fitness apps can help you with this.

-       Then plan your daily meals choosing food according to your health condition.

Lifestyle Modifications:

-       Exercise, walk, jog play, any kind of physical activity is the foundation for a healthy body

-       Quit drugs and smoking choice between live longer and healthy or smoke and die young

-       Reduce the screen time on TV and computers

-       Limit caffeine intake in the form of Tea and Coffee

-       Cocaine and Sugar are same, both create craving and are addictive, bad for health. Cut down completely on sweets to just once in a while.

-       Quit eating all any processed food/snacks from packets, boxes and tins.

-       Replace all sodas with water (64 ounces a day)

-       Eat your fruits, don’t drink them, by juicing your fruits, you are depriving yourself from the valuable fibre that helps your digestion.

-       Don’t eat late night and don't go to bed right after dinner.

According to the guidelines for healthy eating by Harvard Medical School:

Your meal plate should be half filled with fruits and vegetable, preferably uncooked, steamed or sauted. Then quarter plate should be some whole grains, like wheat bread, chapattis and brown rice. Another quarter of you meal plate will have a healthy protein that can include, beans, lentils, poultry and fish. Avoid red meat and if at all you want to eat them it need not be more then twice a month. Choose fats wisely, using very limited quantity of oils, like olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower, peanut. Very little or no butter and completely exclude transfat and semi-hydrogenated fats. Limit the dairy products to one serving a day that are with low or zero fats.

Remember the change in the diet and lifestyle go hand in hand for  health and wellness. Life is a gift from god and you are send to the world with a purpose, your friends and family love you and need you. So make an effort to stay healthy, live a long disease free life.