Outdoor games help reduce lifestyle diseases in children
The President of the Ghana Diabetes Association (GDA), Mrs Elizabeth Denyoh, has urged parents and guardians to allow their children to engage more in outdoor games to enable them to use accumulated energy.
Advertisement
She noted that some children had acquired the habit of getting glued to the computer, mostly playing games and attributed that to the advent of technology.
Mrs Denyoh, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), expressed worry that children were increasingly acquiring lifestyle diseases at the early stages of their lives.
In Ghana, more than 109 Ghanaian children are reported from the various hospitals in the country to have diabetes.
The GDA President has therefore, called on parents to educate their children on other sources of entertainment that help them to work out physically.
Traditional games
Mrs Denyoh recalled years back when children played ‘ampe’, ‘ludu’, football and skipping and other traditional games which were gradually dying and, therefore, called for the reintroduction of these games in homes and neighbourhoods.
According to health professionals, the increase in diabetes cases is fuelled by urbanisation, unhealthy lifestyles, rising obesity and an ageing population.
They say sufficient insulin is important for everybody, particularly children, explaining that people who lack insulin may develop complications such as blindness, stroke, loss of sensation when hot or cold object is touched, and the development of ulcers that are difficult to heal, with some conditions which could result in death.
Other Trending Stories
There are two main types of diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, the body no longer secretes insulin because the body's own immune system has attacked and destroyed the cells which secrete insulin, while in type two diabetes, the body either does not make enough insulin or cannot make optimum use of its own insulin as it should.