Run a 50-year campaign to help combat obesity - Dietitian advises government

A dietitian at the Trust Hospital in Accra, Wise Chukwudi Letsa, has advised government to promptly run a fifty-year national campaign to educate citizens about the dangers associated with obesity.

Explaining his assertion, Mr Letsa said, “Obesity is now prevalent in Ghana. Whenever I walk across the streets or visit our markets, I see a lot of people whom I easily could tell are either obese or suffering from overweight."

“It’s so bad, therefore, I’m calling on the government to promptly run a nationwide campaign to combat obesity for the next 50 years because this medical condition is linked to severe chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, cancer and other health issues."

“The government is not doing enough for our health sector, I believe every district hospital in the country should at least have a well-equipped office dedicated specially for persons suffering from overweight or obesity, it’s a critical condition and I think it’s about time the government start employing more dietitians,” he added.

The dietitian who is also an author of several books urged the public especially persons under forty not to be so comfortable with potbelly.

He said: "“People shouldn’t be okay with the fact that they have developed potbellies because obesity is not an event that happens once and you cure it, it’s a continuous thing that usually takes a long time to manifest, people need to be personally responsible for their weight therefore I'm advising Ghanaians to stop seeking for concoctions for weight loss. also, they should rather engage in activities that will make them sweat and pant for more air like walking, jogging, swimming, etc."

Meanwhile reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that obesity remains “one of today’s most blatantly visible, yet most neglected public health problems.”

Prevalence of obesity across the world increased more than 200% since 1980 with nearly 2 billion adults estimated to be overweight in 2014 including 600 million individuals who were obese.

The report furthered that, the high intake of starch, sugar, fats and salt, combined with a sedentary lifestyle has become a recipe for obesity soaring globally.