| MANILA ’S EMERGING OBESITY: IGNORE OR ADDRESS IT? | |
|
22 Jul 2014 @ 12:41, by Erle Frayne Argonza
Nutrition-related issues and problems in the Philippines constitute a long list. Among all the related issues and problems, hunger stands out as the most highlighted today. While there is no question about highlighting hunger and addressing it with determination, over-focusing on this single issue tends to mask the other issues involved.
Among the emerging issues and problems in nutrition, I would handily pinpoint obesity as the most focal. Needless to say, it challenges development stakeholders to highlight the issue as well, and address it on the same level as hunger is being addressed today. Addressing it would mean resorting to public policy tools, strategies and programs at a national level, and creating necessary institutional frames to accelerate the problem’s solution.
MANILA ’S EMERGING OBESITY: IGNORE OR ADDRESS IT?
Erle Frayne Argonza
Nutrition-related issues and problems in the Philippines constitute a long list. Among all the related issues and problems, hunger stands out as the most highlighted today. While there is no question about highlighting hunger and addressing it with determination, over-focusing on this single issue tends to mask the other issues involved.
Among the emerging issues and problems in nutrition, I would handily pinpoint obesity as the most focal. Needless to say, it challenges development stakeholders to highlight the issue as well, and address it on the same level as hunger is being addressed today. Addressing it would mean resorting to public policy tools, strategies and programs at a national level, and creating necessary institutional frames to accelerate the problem’s solution.
While doing the study on fair trade & food security for the KAISAMPALAD in 2005 (this NGO is a national center for fair trade & food security), I stumbled upon both problems of hunger and obesity. At that time, the latest data from the Social Weather Stations regarding hunger indicated a 12% incidence, a figure that I found alarming as anything past the 8.5% index is considered significant. So I included the hunger issue among those food insecurity ailments that must be salved pronto, recommended policy measures, and even recommended the formation of a Hunger Fund as the multi-stakeholder executor of the anti-hunger mission.
The same study made me stumble upon the findings of nutritionists of the state’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute, which indicated a 25% obesity at the turn of the millennium. That average had its expressed distribution among age groups, with varying indices per age bracket. What was alarming at that time was the 25% Phliippine obesity rate was already 5% above the global average of 20% (the USA’s was 66%).
While I was aghast at the obesity incidence, admittedly I wasn’t prepared to tackle it then, and so I remained silent about the matter in the final research report, save for citing indices of over-weight across age brackets. Today the obesity incidence had risen well above the previous 25%, and certain popular media estimates indicate well pass the 30% mark already (we still need some more update nutrition research on the subject).
Obesity is markedly higher than hunger in the Philippines, surpassing the latter by over double the incidence. The problem with hunger studies is that the methodology is often subjective, since they employ surveys (e.g. asking the informant if s/he has been eating sufficiently or not. In contrast, obesity measures are objective and very exact, as calibration entails the use of weighing scales administered by licensed nutritionists.
I admit that I still am relatively unprepared to tackle the issue as of this day, that is as a development issue. I can only think now of the typical lifestyle intervention to address it, such as combining physical regimen with diet program and a total lifestyle change. Being athletic and a health buff (I was formerly Silver Medalist in national powerlifting –middleweight division), I often offer myself as a prototype of an optimally balanced physical-nutritional wellness person, even as I can easily lecture on lifestyle change and personal intervention to address obesity.
I would end this piece by tossing the query to my fellow Filipinos in the country and to friends overseas: will Manila continue to ignore obesity altogether?
[Philippines, 28 July 2008]
|
|
Category: Opinions
2 comments
14 Jul 2016 @ 12:57 by Kathy Joel @197.210.224.113 : MY HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS WAS TOTALLY CURE
l am so glad and really happy to share my experience on how the great Dr Akuna cured i and my husband of (HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS) with his herbal medicine,i have been suffering from this disease for the past 6years without solution until i came across the email of this great Dr who have cure so many people with his herbal medicine,i also choose to give him a chance to help me and my husband, he told me what to do and i kindly did it, and he gave us his herbal medicine and direct me on how to use it,i also follows his instruction on how to use the herbal medicine and he told us to go for a check up after 2 weeks and which i did, to my greatest surprise our result came out as negative, we are really happy that there is someone like this DR Akuna who is ready to help anytime any day. to all the readers and viewers that is reading this testimony that need the help of Dr Akuna contact his email:[email protected] and experience his powerful work contact his Mobil:+2348154625070
12 Nov 2016 @ 07:38 by Shannon @197.210.29.59 : How I Got My Ex Husband Back...........
How I Got My Ex Husband Back...........
I am Shannon by name. Greetings to every one that is reading this testimony. I have been rejected by my husband after three(3) years of marriage just because another woman had a spell on him and he left me and the kid to suffer. one day when i was reading through the web, i saw a post on how this spell caster on this address [email protected] , have help a woman to get back her husband and i gave him a reply to his address and he told me that a woman had a spell on my husband and he told me that he will help me and after 2 days that i will have my husband back. i believed him and today i am glad to let you all know that this spell caster have the power to bring lovers back. because i am now happy with my husband. Thanks for Dr.Mako. His email: [email protected] OR. his phone number: +2348108737816.
Other entries in Opinions
10 Sep 2015 @ 09:12: MERKABA ACTIVATED ONLY BY ALMIGHTY FATHER UPON MASTER AWAKENING, BEWARE OF CULT
16 Aug 2015 @ 10:25: WILL PHILIPPINE INSURGENCIES END SOON?
1 Aug 2015 @ 09:09: MANILA WILL BE DESTROYED & SUNKEN AFTER PLANET NIBIRU FLYBY CATASTROPHE
4 Mar 2015 @ 06:57: WHAT’S PROSPECT FOR 5TH DENSITY ASCENT BY 2019- 2025?
25 Oct 2014 @ 05:50: CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY: CAN IT SURVIVE THE COMING ‘TECHNOTRONIC’ CAPITALISM?
4 Aug 2014 @ 07:04: IS THE WTO DEAD? WHAT SAYETH THINE PHYSIOCRATS?
14 Jul 2014 @ 07:44: DEPOPULATION, GENOCIDE: GLOBAL OLIGARCHY’S POPULATION AGENDA
25 Feb 2014 @ 06:53: CLIMATE CHANGE: PLANETARY OR GALACTIC?...ROCKET SCIENTIST BACKTRACKS GLOBAL WARM
17 Feb 2014 @ 06:12: LOIN EMPOWERMENT: CHURCH CRANKY POLITICAL DISCOURSE
27 Nov 2013 @ 07:10: NAZI HEALTHCARE AGENDA RISING IN AMERICA
|
