Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) refer to organizations or people having strong societal influence and status, given their ability to shape popular perception. Such influence may be attributed to popularity or long-standing efforts, commitment and support towards social causes by relatively unknown faces. KOLs either have clear political insights about specific programmes and their limitations, or have the opportunity to increase commitment in their own right. The underlying rationale is to add credibility to say, a particular campaign or raise awareness around crucial, but under-represented issues. Such engagement can help influence people’s behaviors and facilitate necessary social change.
Kailash Satyarthi’s result-oriented efforts to curb child labour, slavery and trafficking and achieve “education for all” is globally recognized. Similarly, Amitabh Bachchan’s brand ambassadorship for the Polio Eradication Campaign supplemented political will and commitment to make India polio-free. This is being replicated for other diseases like tuberculosis as well. Such examples illustrate the success of socially powerful voices who lend support to and endorse important social causes, especially when the media tends to sensationalize issues, by reporting programme failures rather than positive stories.
Adequate nutrition is a fundamental cornerstone of any individual’s health. Unfortunately, awareness around nutritional disorders in India, across both urban and rural areas, is limited to malnutrition-related statistics. Over 51% women of reproductive age are anemic but policies and actions for women’s health are usually focused on and limited by their reproductive capacity. Despite India’s tropical climate, most men and women suffer from Vitamin D deficiency.
Awareness around obesity, caused by sedentary lifestyles and refined carbohydrates-rich diets has gained some traction with the popularity of low-calorie fad diets. These may be harmful in the long run (unless medically recommended) due to deprivation of essential nutrients and ignorance of individual body types and nutrient needs. However, popular figures like Shilpa Shetty and Kareena Kapoor are now promoting healthy eating and fitness via celebrity dieticians like Rujuta Diwekar.
Knowledge gaps exist vis-à-vis manifestations of micronutrient deficiency, the concept of first 1000 days, over-nutrition etc. Currently, micronutrients are rarely recommended for consumption and vitamins are viewed as medicines, due to limited knowledge, understanding and medical encouragement. Scientific evidence shows that daily multivitamin supplementation is a safe and effective way to address nutritional shortfalls.
Various studies in states like Bihar have revealed that one of the causes of under nutrition is the incorrect or suboptimal nature of feeding practices, further aggravated by inadequate frequencies and dietary diversity. Thus, the right messaging via advertisements and campaigns is crucial, the relevance of which is accentuated in a country wherein feeding habits across different regions are immensely diverse culturally. For example, exclusive breastfeeding needs to specifically mean “not even water.” None of India’s UN Goodwill Ambassadors focus their initiatives solely on nutrition.
Today, millions of people are awaiting concerted sustainable actions against widespread hunger, based on easily reachable solutions. KOLs can help filter contradicting or incomplete pieces of information that saturate the internet. Thus, their visible presence and effective utilization can help boost global initiatives and government policies by enabling target audiences to make informed nutritional choices and decisions as well as improve the implementation of government initiatives like the National Nutritional Anaemia Prophylaxis Programme (NNAPP) wherein the strategy of simply handing out iron tablets to pregnant women has had limited success.
Thus, key opinion leaders (KOLs) can play a crucial role in contributing towards concerted efforts geared towards garnering public support via thought leadership and spreading awareness around nutrition-related issues to improve India’s nutritional outcomes.
Aditi Rukhaiyar
January 2, 2019
source https://indiaoutbound.org/leveraging-key-opinion-leaders-to-improve-indias-nutritional-status/
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