Virtual Listening Party on Nutrition, Diet, Exercise & Menstruation
Rural women's digital capacity brought some fantastic results in the form of offline Listening parties and virtual parties. After covering the basics of menstruation and menstrual disorders, we moved on to creating content and engaging in online discussion about nutrition, diet, and exercise, as well as their role in the menstrual cycle. This is what we call our second Virtual Listening Party on this underrated topic with almost 10 participants from 4 different villages of rural Sindh.
We chose this topic because it carries an important value in managing a normal menstrual cycle. Unfortunately, when it comes to having nutritious meals, girls and women in our country, particularly in rural regions, receive less attention than boys. Males are thought to contribute to the family's financial well-being, and this might be the fact that they are given a larger healthier portion of the food. However, we frequently overlook this fact that females and their reproductive health contribute to the development of a healthy future generation.
We started off with the basic understanding of nutrition and diet. Many people associate the word "diet" with an unpleasant weight-loss procedure, it actually refers to the meal portions a person consumes regularly, as well as the mental and physical circumstances connected to eating. Then, we asked the question of whether girls' nutritional needs vary following their menarche. As the female body begins to change as a result of monthly cycles and blood loss, it is essential to include more healthy foods in the diet during adolescence. Following that, we helped the participants understand how a healthy diet and balanced meals might help girls to have a regular menstrual cycle. We also spoke about certain foods like Fish, Red Meat, Green leafy vegetables, juicy fruits, all of which provide key nutrients such as iron, calcium, fibre, carbs, and vitamins. This led us to also talk about those foods that are needed to be avoided during those days including: Carbonated drinks, bakery items, processed food and junk food.
To make this conversation more interesting, we also presented a list of questions about whether females can swim, workout, lift heavy weights, and play sports during periods. We found that participants were interested to share their menstrual conditions and remedies they use to ease the period cramps. One of them shared the specific remedy made by her mother by using some natural ingredients including black pepper. She said that it gives her relief during menstrual pain. Other participants expressed their gratitude for the online discussion, saying it helped them learn new insights about nutritional importance for menstruation health.