Most Ghanaian MPs have obesity and diabetes – Dr. Nsiah Asare

Presidential Advisor on Health has revealed that most of Ghana’s Members of Parliament are suffering from obesity and diabetes.

The former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service(GHS) made the disclosure while contributing to a research finding which was done by the Service which concluded that 4 out of every 10 Ghanaians are obese.

“I’ve realized that if you go to Parliament most of them have Obesity and Diabetes, their clinic there I’ve realized what they do is that everybody’s BP is high and they always go there to check their BP.”

He further bemoaned what he described as a dangerous development where several children are developing childhood obesity.

He attributed this to the fact that many parents want their children to only eat and not go for any activities when they return from school.

“You drag your children at the age of 2 to kindergarten, they go to primary school and when they come back early morning because you’re staying in Abura and there’s no school in Abura so you come to Christ the King. So the child is woken up at 4am it means the child didn’t have enough sleep, he comes and he studies and because you are a working parent you want the child to stay there until 5pm when you close before you go and pick the child. You pay the teacher that he should continue teaching a 2-year-old child extra classes and the child will sit in the classroom and by the time he reaches home, it’s already dark so there’s no activity whatsoever. Weekends you want to go out so you drag the child along and you don’t allow the kid to go on the field to go and run around. So we are developing children with childhood obesity and that is the most dangerous thing we are developing in our society.”