Meet the Champions: Bajrang Punia emphasises on taking balanced diet

Panipat: Tokyo Olympics Bronze medal winner wrestler Bajrang Punia met the students of 75 schools from four districts under the ‘Meet the Champions’ initiative at the Aarohi Model School here on Thursday. Bajrang spoke to students about the importance of fitness and the significance of a balanced diet.The star grappler promoted the Indian traditional sports by participating in a game of Kho-Kho with the students. He even showed them some easy-to-do fitness exercises.Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of asking the Olympians and Paralympians to visit schools across India and interact with the students, Bajrang said, “I am very happy that I have come to this school, it reminds me of my school days because even I come from a village in Haryana and coming back here is like coming back to school.”Speaking to students about the importance of having the right diet and following a fit lifestyle, Bajrang said, “India has one of the largest and youngest populations in the world, but we still get so few Olympic medals.

One of the main reasons for this is as a nation a large section of the population is still undernourished and don’t get the right diet. Therefore, if you want to be mentally and physically strong and see India on the top in any field, you need to eat the right things and exercise at least for half an hour, twice a day.”The initiative is part of the government’s ‘Azaadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ that was kicked off by Olympic gold medalist Neeraj Chopra in Gujarat earlier this month.Bajrang stressed the need to have homemade food that has essentials like greens, proteins, carbohydrates, minerals and urged kids to stay away from junk food.”During my early days of training we were not allowed to even step out of our training center daily, so when we got one chance to step out the first thing we wanted to do was to eat tasty roadside food like chaat and tikki. But that would be once in many months, not regularly. So, you have to promise me that you won’t have junk food regularly, and you will try to give it up.”