Film stars to promote health awareness through caller tunes

The next time you call a friend, don't be surprised if you hear Amitabh Bachchan talking about controlling blood, John Abraham giving health tips on how to avoid obesity or Parineeti Chopra asking you to safeguard yourself against cardio-vascular diseases.
The Health Ministry in collaboration with World Health Organisation (WHO) has initiated a project where bollywood celebrities would be giving health tips through mobile phone caller tunes.
The silver screen stars have lend their voice to the first-of-its-kind initiative for promoting health awareness.
The unique 'Donate Your Caller Tune For a Cause' campaign was launched on the World Population Day today for creating public awareness about the growing burden of non-communicable diseases and for providing other health tips.

Launching the initiative, Union Health Secretary K N Desiraju said, "We are facing a growing burden of noncommunicable diseases, a large proportion of which are preventable by modifying behavioural risk factors like unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, consumption of tobacco products and alcohol etc.
"It is important that we explore innovative mediums such as caller tunes to create awareness on such issues."

WHO Representative to India, Nata Menabde, emphasised on the need for more such initiatives.
"The idea is to reach out with creative messages for adopting healthy lifestyles. India has one of the largest mobile users in this world and on an average, a person receives around 15 calls a day, making the space of caller tune an untapped area for promoting health causes," Menabde said.

She said celebrities have proven to be good ambassadors for various causes and their involvement adds a lot of value to the campaign.
Under the initiative, a donation is made when people give up their regular caller tunes and replace them with any one of the health awareness messages or subscribe to 'Donate your caller tune' available on website www.Donateyourcallertune.In.
The celebrities and the causes they have supported are: Amitabh Bachchan (high blood pressure), Jaya Bachchan (breast and cervical cancer), Akshay Kumar (unhealthy food), Ranveer Singh (fitness), R Madhavan (diabetes), John Abraham (obesity), Shankar Mahadevan (stroke), Shaan (anti-tobacco), Cyrus Broacha (stress) and Parineeti Chopra (cardiovascular disease).