Obesity
I was reading a write-up duly published in the Medical News Today and learned that Obesity is not just a problem for the USA, it is not just limited to other developed countries either - it is a problem that has spread throughout the globe, and is now recognized as an insidious killer and the major contributing cause of preventable diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease - according to Professor Paul Zimmet, chairman of the 10th International Congress on Obesity, Sydney, Australia.
Healthcare professionals now acknowledge that childhood obesity/overweight is such, that we could be seeing, for the first time in human history, the possibility of millions of parents outliving their children.
Overweight/obesity affects more people on our planet than under-nourishment.
In other words, there are more fat people in the world than underfed people.
Obesity is now the greatest contributor to chronic diseases. Childhood obesity was the major theme in this conference. Experts say that obesity among children is a problem that will manifest itself in a big way when these obese/overweight children grow up. If nothing is done to combat the problem we will be facing massive chronic health consequences.
According to Prof. Kate Steinbeck, Sydney Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, a huge number of children today may die before their parents because of obesity. Exactly how many obese/overweight people there are in the world today is hard to tell. The World Health Organization (WHO) says there are about 1 billion, of which 300 million are obese. If this is an accurate estimate, obesity/overweight is now a world epidemic. There are 800 million underweight people worldwide.
On the other hand, the International Obesity Task Force revealed that 1.7 billion of the world's 6 billion people were overweight or obese. Packaged food and fast-food chains are multiplying in new economies and this has to lead to obesity, which the WHO calls a "global epidemic". I don't have any information about Bangladesh but in a recent survey in India, 55 per cent of women between 20 and 69 were found to be overweight. Junk food causes the fatal fat. How can such foods be a healthy choice?
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments