248am
posted today an
interesting article from the Business week
on the obesity situation in the gulf and how it has been tagged as the Other
Gulf War Syndrome.
Although much debate may be persistent
on how the western culture may have plagued the dietary habits of the khaleejis
( aka GCC nationals) and residents, it somehow seems more logical to believe
that it all trickles down to behavioral norms and habits.
An individual choosing to be sedentary
can practically do it with any amount of temptation available to him regardless.
Nevertheless, the availability of such temptations do bear some relevance in
the argument.
Some of the findings highlighted in the
article:
·
One out of three Kuwaiti adults is obese. 10% is morbidly obese.
·
Only 12% of Kuwaitis have a body-mass index (BMI) below
25. (The ideal range is 18.5 to 25.)
·
This means at least 88% of Kuwaitis, in other
words, are considered overweight.
·
Kuwait is the second-most obese nation in the world,
behind the U.S.
·
10 years ago, Al Sanea says, there were only two
bariatric surgeons in Kuwait. Today, there are 20. By 2015, he predicts, there will be 40.
Some recent findings as stated in
another article on a Global level
are :
·
From 1980 to 2008, according to the World Health
Organization, worldwide obesity rates almost doubled.
·
A recent studyin the Lancet medical journal
concluded that in 2008, about 146 million adults globally were overweight
and 502 million were obese.
·
Around half of the adult population in Brazil, Russia,
and South Africa are overweight and about 8% of all African adults are obese.
·
United Nations suggeststhat, existing food supplies are so
poorly distributed that hundreds of millions have too little for their own
health, while 2 billion-plus have too much.
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