Fighting obesity

Sri Lanka is fast catching with the West on several fronts. Now we are fast aping the occident even in our food habits to the great detriment of our health. Yesterday's front page story in our issue which revealed that 15 per cent of Colombo schoolchildren are afflicted with obesity is just a case in point.

A physician quoted in the story goes onto blame the parents for their negligent attitude towards their children's addiction to fast foods which according to medical opinions are the chief contributor to obesity that brings with it life threatening disease such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

He goes onto point out how these fastfood saturated with fatty substances go onto induce lethargy and indolence that could have a detrimental effect on the attention span of the young which in turn affects their performance in school. It would be worthwhile ascertaining if obesity was a key factor in the recent poor results in GCE (O/L) results. Significantly it is the self same Colombo schools which suffered the worst debacle at the exams.

The issues of obesity should be tackled on a national scale. This is because rapid urbanisation has seen more and more attributes of the cities making inroads into these hitherto unspoilt terrain. Already we see outlets of city's fast food chains spreading out far and wide.

In the West urgent steps are now underway to seriously deal with the condition of obesity with various regimes and measures to wean children away from bad eating habits. We wonder if any such program exists to tackle this issue on a priority basis here. Some analysts have even considered this problem from a sociological perspective viz the impact of modern day living and lifestyles on general health.

The advent of television, the computer, video games etc. no doubt have induced sedentary lifestyles among the children and adults alike. That obesity is largely confined to Colombo schools itself tells a tale. The affluent in the cities today are too engrossed in the rat race to care for the quality of their food. Nor do they have the time to pick and choose. It is common even for an executive of big companies to nibble at some junk food while going through files or browsing the Internet or computer.

This habit has percolated down to the children and young adults belonging to the affluent who are today addicted to fastfoods. The crowds one sees on any given day at well-known food chains in the cities is ample proof of this. They consider consuming traditional or native food as infra dig. And pay for it in the long run.

So as the Doctor has noted parents themselves are culpable for inflicting bad eating habits on their children with the result that we are fast becoming a nation of the sick through wilfully inducing conditions such as obesity and bloating the national health budget to effect cures.

Gone are the days when children engaged in extracurricular activities in schools. Today, they are like their adults, engaged in a rat race of a different kind, rushing to tutories after school in a bid to outdo one another. Today, sports and recreational activities that were taken for granted in the past is a luxury most children cannot afford in the current milieu of unbridled consumerism and a liberal ethos.

Time was when pride of place was given to physical activity in the school curriculum. Old timers still recall the PT periods that were part of the school timetable. We wonder if such exists any longer. The latest revelation suggests this is not the case.

There is also no space any more for outdoor recreation and sporting pursuits with all land gobbled up for development and progress.

The Government should give serious thought to this emerging trend which if not arrested would see the Nation carrying a heavy load of the sick that will not auger well for the future of the country.

Incentives for milk production

According to a story we carried in our provincial pages yesterday, steps are being taken to distribute 1,500 hybrid milch cows to Samurdhi families in the Kurunegala and Puttalam districts to increase milk production.

This is certainly a step in the right direction and would give particular impetus to President Mahinda Rajapaksa's desire to promote the country's dairy industry as spelled out in the Mahinda Chintana.

The move will also pave the way for a free availability of fresh milk throughout the country to serve the nutritional needs of the populace. Presently we have failed to tap the vast potential of our dairy industry even with the vast pastures and grazing lands in the hill country. Had we pursued a systematic program to develop our dairy industry today, we would have been on par with even some of the Western countries amongst the world's largest milk producers.

Sri Lanka's livestock and diary industries had been neglected for long. Incentives for dairy farmers were very few which saw a crippling of this most vital sector. Switzerland, a country much smaller than Sri Lanka is today, is the foremost livestock and dairy producer due to the systematic promotion and development of these industries, with their farmers given all the support by the state.

Today, we import the bulk of our milk powder from Switzerland which should not have been the case if our dairy industry was made to flourish under expert guidance.

Now with the East brought back to normal and North liberated there is vast prospects for the growth of our dairy industry to realise its full potential. This new move it is hoped would prove a catalyst for the resurgence of the dairy industry and Sri Lanka being self-sufficient in milk.