Friday, 5 September 2014 01:13
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Sri Lanka is facing dual and complicated challenges as a developing country. The Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) in a recent survey has found that a shocking one-third of all children are either overweight or obese.
The GMOA has blamed the situation on unhealthy eating habits including the consumption of cakes, chocolates, fried food and fizzy drinks as well as too much of carbohydrate-rich food like rice and pasta. Sedentary lifestyles, where children bounce between demanding academic schedules and long sessions of TV and computers, are another reason. Overall limited knowledge of healthy food among adults and incapacity to adjust their lifestyles to healthier patterns is also taking its toll.
Adults with bad eating habits and lack of exercise result in more overweight or obese children. While statistics for children may seem more alarming, it is merely an indication of a much larger problem involving the whole population. Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) are becoming more prevalent as the culture of fast food and eating out gains ground in the country.
Increased urbanisation and hectic lifestyles also mean traditional eating patterns are being disrupted but traditional attitudes to food aren’t evolving at the same pace. For example, children have always been encouraged to finish all food on their plate but if the food is unhealthy, excessive or unnecessary eating can do more harm than good.
NCD care in Sri Lanka is increasingly financed by out-of-pocket spending by the general public. NCDs have already become the largest contributor to the burden of disease in Sri Lanka, accounting for 85% of ill-health and early death. A South Asia regional study has found that South Asians suffer their first heart attack six years earlier than other groups worldwide. They are also more vulnerable to diseases such as diabetes at an earlier age.
This burden of NCDs will rise in the future, in part due to further ageing of the population with the doubling of the population over the age of 65 from 12.1% to 24.4% over the next 30 years. The burden of NCDs is also increasingly shifting towards the poor. Risk factors such as obesity, smoking, high sugar and salt diets, and alcoholism are also on the rise, helped along their destructive path by sedentary lifestyles and ignorance.
Studies encourage Sri Lanka to adopt a number of population-based and individual patient-based approaches to reduce unhealthy behaviours in the general population and control heart disease, diabetes, cancers and other NCDs.
More efforts such as more effective legislation on the use of trans-fats and tobacco as well as public education to reduce salt intake would help delay the onset of these diseases. Encouraging people to exercise regularly and eat healthily needs greater emphasis as well, especially when the national diet is heavy in starch.
At the clinic level, aspirin and beta blockers for high risk individuals could reduce the chances of cardiovascular diseases. This is not a problem that can be fixed with a pill, however, and getting the right information to people in the right way remains the biggest challenge of all.
Caught in an aspirational consumption pattern, more and more people are finding it more important to make money rather than concentrate on their health. Changing this attitude will be the hardest challenge of all.
