Gold Award Girl Scout: Akshara

Gold Award Project: The 543210 Program: Establishing Healthy Habits

“The primary leadership skill I had to put into practice was communication. Throughout the process of earning my Girl Scout Gold Award, I needed to effectively communicate with various healthcare professionals, peers, and adults. This really influenced me to put effort into developing these abilities."

Acknowledging that the largest contributing factor to the obesity epidemic is a lack of knowledge on how to live a healthy lifestyle, Akshara’s aim was to increase awareness of preventable health disorders through education and behavior modifications related to certain health topics. She presented to the Dharma Internship Program and the Health Service Society of the United States on her 543210 Program, drawbacks of the modern sedentary lifestyle and guidelines to implement in participants’ lives. Akshara published an article on Medium regarding seasonal eating and started a public health podcast to help people to recognize the negative effects of sugar in the body, which was published as an episode on Spotify. Akshara also created informational brochures and shared them through the Brookfield Public Library, displayed posters at Advocate Aurora Health, advocated for living a healthy lifestyle by competing in a Community Awareness Competition hosted by HOSA, and created a website to spread the word about her project.