Exclusive | Medical student Hitarth’s ‘stop mistreating your body’ takes the internet by storm: Just spreading awareness
Hitarth Simaria's post has gone viral. The medical students says that he is happy spreading spreading awareness about fitness and he has been flooded with DMs
Five weeks ago, Hitarth Simaria, a fifth-year medical student from Government Medical College, Akola (Maharashtra), and a fitness enthusiast, posted a reel on ‘stop mistreating your body’ that went viral.
On his Instagram own page, it has reached 5 million views and garnered multi-million views on other handles. His viral clip on “your body is your biggest asset” has triggered awareness about eating and habits while highlighting the rise of lifestyle diseases including obesity, diabetes, and heart conditions across age groups.
In his first-ever interview, he tells HT City, “I am flooded with DMs from people seeking help from me on fitness—listing their obesity and undernourishment problems. Since I am still a student, I am not qualified to give medical advice, but on the path of fitness, from my knowledge, study, and research, I am trying to do my bit. We should be grateful if we are not suffering from any major chronic illness and stop treating our body like garbage.”
He candidly confesses that three years ago, at 5 feet 11 inches tall and 53 kgs, he was underweight and undernourished as per World Health Organisation’s body mass index (BMI) guidelines, from where he started his fitness journey and gradually began content creation earlier this year.
Hitarth tells, “People are sharing my post on their stories and wall and congratulating me for my effort. Experts like author-lifestyle guru Luke Coutinho, fitness entrepreneurs, fitness trainer Vanshika Khurana, senior doctors, and several others shared my post and showered me with blessings. It gives me direction to make good content and help people on the road to fitness.”
He explains, “We are a carb-eating country, where we hardly have awareness about protein, maintenance calories, and muscle mass. Even in MBBS, we are not taught about this in depth. So, rather than going to a doctor for treatment after catching diseases, we can prevent major diseases by keeping ourselves fit.”
He recently came up with another video on doctor’s fees. “See, if you want consultancy from an expert then one needs to pay professional fees, and that’s fine. It’s a choice; one can go to a government hospital and take free advice. I personally feel people do a lot of self-treatment, which is wrong. Take the case of a fever: we should first let our immunity fight it out, and then visit a doctor and take medicine only after consultation,” he says.
After MBBS, Hitarth wants to pursue MS or MD and continue spreading awareness. “I am taking it to YouTube now to create a monetised model so I can do medical practice with integrity and also earn from the digital medium,” he adds on a signing-off note.
