“Students are future leaders who play an important role in community capacity building. As an agent of change, especially in health sector, students must be able to educate community to always live healthily and promote the campaign of healthy living in community. And the most important is to become a role model in implementing healthy lifestyle itself.” said Dr. Wiwat Rojanapithayakorn on “Health Promoting University” guest lecture, Tuesday (6/3) at auditorium of Postgraduate Building Tahir Foundation, FKKMK UGM. In front of more than 150 students from undergraduate to residency program, and also pharmacy and dentistry student, Rojanapithayakorn described the role of university in health promotion as follow: adding health promotion into curriculum; providing health service for students, staff, and community; and applying health initiative in order to make healthier workplace, subsequently on community.
He then revealed Japan’s secrets as a country with the largest aging population. Cited from World Health Statistics report released by WHO, Japan has the highest average of life expectancy of 83.7 years. Japanese female has the average of 86.8 years, placing them at the first place among all WHO countries, with some even reach more than 100 years. Through their educational institutions, Japanese government emphasizes on community education about healthy living since a really young age. Community education becomes the key for “Health-Promoting University” to be successful. As a result, they managed to produce experts to be professional, and most importantly, healthy. Healthy living eventually becomes a habit for them, whatever their profession and wherever they live.
An interactive question-and-answer session was guided by the Vice Dean for Academic and Student Affairs, dr. Gandes Retno Rahayu. There was an interesting question about how campus could apply Health Promoting University while on the other side, the available canteens still sell unhealthy food. The question was answered by another participant, who expressed the need of healthy living practice to ourselves, choosing healthy food, and reading the label of nutrition on every food and beverages.
Rojanapithayakorn as an executive director of Health Promotion Sub-Network of ASEAN University Network (AUN-HPN) and also a director of Mahidol University Global Health Program, Mahidol University Thailand, emphasized the need of a clear and consistent top-down policy with continued socialization. In Mahidol, he added that all canteens follow university’s policy which the use of flavoring and certain sauces were banned as their canteens provide healthy food only. He also added that there is a special day for sports, targeted to all staff and students on a certain hour. Strong top-down policy is required for Health-Promoting University campaign to be executed.
At the end of the question-and-answer session, dr. Gandes suggested an interesting idea to the Vice Dean for Finance, Assets and Resources, dr. Mahardika. The idea was to hold a competition for students on giving education and assistance to the canteen manager in order to achieve Health-Promoting University. While it was an interesting idea, it is also a challenge for faculty and students on taking the role and applying healthy life campaign at FKKMK UGM, and finally also expanding the promotion to community. (interpreted by Leo\photos by Aryo)
