How to determine a healthy body weight
Overweight and obesity are medical terms used to describe ranges of body weight that are considered unhealthy for a given height.
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These ranges, according to medical experts, link degrees of body fatness to increased risk of health complications and diseases.
Obesity is said to be a major public health problem the world over which is said to have become a pandemic.
According to the Deputy Director of Health Services of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Mrs Gloria Quansah Asare, obesity was a major contributor to rising proportions of non-communicable diseases which also posed a major threat to reversing 50 years of improvement in life expectancy.
Quoting the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) prevalence of obesity at a conference on obesity organised by the Medical Women Association of Ghana (MWAG) in Accra recently, Dr Mrs Quansah Asare said it had more than doubled over the last three decades.
The conference was on the theme: “The obesity pandemic (helping the mother and the family)”.
The conference, also addressed by the Human Resource Director of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Gloria Borteley, on behalf of the sector Minister, Nana Oye Lithur, had a sub-theme: “Eliminating domestic and sexual violence.”
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Health and Human Services, say weight that is higher than what is considered as a healthy weight for a given height is described as overweight or obese.
Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a person's weight in kilogrammes divided by the square of height in metres, is used as a screening tool for overweight or obesity.
Obese statistics
Dr Mrs Quansah Asare said: “In 2010, there were 1.5 billion adults (20 years and above) who were overweight with 300 million females and 200 males being obese,”.
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Still quoting the WHO, she said obesity and overweight were the fifth leading causes of global deaths with about three million adults dying each year from consequences of being obese or overweight.
A 2006 WHO report on obesity, according to her, said the rate of increase in the prevalence of obesity in developing countries was more rapid than in developed countries and particularly in urban areas.
Dr Mrs Quansah Asare said currently the WHO has estimated that as much as 20 to 50 per cent of the urban population in Africa were either overweight or obese, adding that by 2025, three quarters of the obese population worldwide would be in non-industrialised countries.
She said Ghana was not spared from the obesity pandemic as the prevalence has been rising steadily from as low as 0.9 per cent in the 1980’s to about 14 per cent in 2003.
Obesity, she said, had several health consequences as it was a major risk factor for the global burden of non-communicable diseases including diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke and some cancers.
Problems associated with obesity
It is also the major cause of some major psychological, physical, social and economic conditions.
Other health-related problems of obesity include increasing disability adjusted life years (DALYs), premature death, reduction in life expectancy and high cost of health on individual, family, community, national and global levels.
Obesity, she said, also had economic implications which included reduction in labour productivity and income while increasing health expenditure.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Dr Victor Asare Bampoe, who represented the First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, said obesity had become an issue given the pace of modern life which had led many people to consume more fast food and sugar sweetened beverages, eat outside the home more frequently and spend less time enjoying family meals.
Training as a panacea
He said today, people were into less physical activities with some schools cutting back in physical education and recess with children being driven to school and back rather than walking.
Indeed, children and adults today spend more time watching television or engage in computers or gaming systems that take away opportunities for physical activity like organised sports or informal playing.
He said no single action alone would reverse the obesity epidemic, although there was no question that improving eating habits and increasing physical activities were two critical strategies, adding that these strategies stood a good chance if they were centred around family and friends.
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Writer's email: rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh