Six years ago, Dilafruze Hudoikulova depended on daily medication to manage constant stomach pain caused by a chronic ulcer. Today, she rarely visits a pharmacy.
“I didn’t stop medicine overnight,” she says. “I started by changing small habits - how I eat, how I move, and how I think about health.”
Dilafruze works at the Republican Center for Healthy Lifestyle Development under the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of the Population. As part of her job, she began learning more about nutrition, physical activity, and prevention of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). What started as professional knowledge soon became a personal transformation.
By applying simple, evidence-based recommendations: reducing salt and sugar intake, eating more fruits and vegetables, and staying physically active, Dilafruze significantly improved her own health. The change did not stop with her.
Her mother, a traditional Tajik woman who spent much of her time following unhealthy diets, developed hypertension and reduced mobility. “It was difficult for her at first,” Dilafruze recalls. “But step by step, she followed the doctors’ advice.” Today, her mother is more active, has better blood pressure control, and enjoys daily walks.
As a mother of two, Dilafruze is especially mindful of what she cooks for her family. She limits salt to less than five grams per day across all meals and carefully reads food labels while shopping. Sugary drinks and processed snacks have slowly been replaced by fruits and healthier options.
Yet Dilafruze knows that personal effort alone is not enough. Children are constantly exposed to aggressive marketing of unhealthy foods, especially through television and small shops near schools.
That is why she feels proud to be part of the Joint Programme “Transforming Food Systems for Better Nutrition”, funded by the UN Joint SDG Fund and implemented in Tajikistan by FAO, UNICEF, WHO, and WFP, in close collaboration with the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan.
As a member of a research team reviewing food and beverage advertising on national TV channels, Dilafruze analyzed content aimed at children.
“I was shocked,” she says. “On children’s channels, advertisements for sugary drinks, sweet popcorn, and mayonnaise appeared again and again.”
“Every year, noncommunicable diseases place a growing burden on families and the health system in Tajikistan,” says Victor Olsavszky, WHO Representative in Tajikistan. “Evidence shows that cost-effective measures - such as reducing salt intake, eliminating industrial trans fats, and protecting children from unhealthy food marketing - can save thousands of lives. This joint UN programme turns evidence into action, helping stories like Dilafruze’s become the norm rather than the exception.”
Through this joint UN effort, WHO is advancing the adoption of evidence-based Best Buys to reduce NCD risk, including salt reduction, elimination of industrial trans fats, taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages, and restrictions on marketing unhealthy foods to children. UNICEF, working with civil society partners, is generating school- and community-level evidence to inform a national Social and Behavior Change strategy promoting healthier diets among children and families. FAO is supporting food systems transformation to improve access to nutritious and affordable foods, while WFP, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Science, has developed a roadmap to integrate nutrition education into the national school curriculum.
"UNICEF is using Social and Behavioural Change approaches to promote healthy and nutritious diets by empowering children, adolescents, families, and communities as agents of change in preventing all forms of malnutrition. Through strengthened engagement of teachers and health workers, improved nutrition knowledge among children, adolescents, and parents, and active community involvement, UNICEF is helping increase the consumption of nutritious, diverse, and locally produced diets.” Arthur van Diesen, UNICEF Representative in Tajikistan.
For Dilafruze, these efforts are deeply personal.
“I am doing everything I can to give my children a healthy future,” she says. “This programme is helping mothers like me — not just to change our families, but to change the system.”
Original publication: https://www.unicef.org/tajikistan/stories/one-family-national-action
Note:
All joint programmes of the Joint SDG Fund are led by UN Resident Coordinators and implemented by the agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations development system. With sincere appreciation for the contributions from the European Union and Governments of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland for a transformative movement towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
