STARTING next year, 100 Jamaican children will benefit from training at the Emanuel Macrobiotic Health and Wellness Learning Centre for Children.

The Centre – the brainchild of Antiguan-born, Jamaica-based naturopath, Ted Emanuel – was launched at the Hilton Kingston on Wednesday with an aim to provide a source of constant education for the younger generation, emphasising the impact of their nutritional choices on their health.

At the learning centre, children aged seven to 18 years old will be exposed to a variety of programmes including Yoga, Ayurvedic Medicine from India, Chinese medicine, corrective exercises, nutritional cooking and computer basics. Physical activities will be a major component of instruction at the non-profit institution.

Students will be required to attend classes Mondays to Fridays beginning at 2:30 pm and ending at 7:30 pm. At the centre two meals – lunch and dinner – will be provided free of cost.

The programme has a four-year duration, at the end of which graduates will be awarded a diploma and required to return to the centre to teach for at least a year.

Emanuel, in explaining his commitment to improving the lives of the nation’s children says, “When I look at how children are being abused by parents nutritionally and how society turns its back on our children, I can’t help feeling the way I do.”

He attributes the poor nutrition and health of some of the nation’s children to the modern, accelerated lifestyle and the glorification of “bad, devious and bastardised foods” by many parents.

Edgar Chin, proprietor of Natural Health, agrees.

“In Jamaica we have a problem with obesity. Because of technology and the sedentary lifestyle associated, children have become inactive,” he explained. While acknowledging the benefits of technology, Chin says that the negatives cannot be ignored.

Emanuel in the meantime, said children in Jamaica and other parts of the world suffer from declining parental concern about their activities and their well-being.

“They (parents) come to me with every degenerative disease that you can think of. but they never bring their children,” he said.

Pointing to Jamaica’s status of having the highest rate of prostate cancer per capita in the world, Emanuel says he aims to change this negative by focusing on the youth.

“Adults are set in their ways, I’ve been educating and re-educating them for 54 years,” he said.

He believes that by changing the attitudes of the youth, there is a better chance of progress for the future.

He highlights the high levels of absenteeism due to illness that occurs in Jamaican workplaces and relates this to the low levels of productivity that beset certain industries. According to Emanuel, a healthier nation will be a more productive nation, which will result in more financial wealth.

The Emanuel Macrobiotic Health and Wellness Learning Centre for Children will be funded by the sale of DVDs of Emanuel’s popular television health show, Let’s Talk Health. Private sector companies and individuals who share in Emanuel’s vision will also provide financial support for the centre.

He also intends to work with the ministries of Education and Health in this venture which he believes will change Jamaica, and has plans to establish similar centres in Antigua and Barbados.