Obesity Causing Infertility Among More Malaysians

KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 (Bernama) -- More Malaysians, especially men, face the risk of infertility due to obesity and poor eating habits.
Obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr K.Thanikasalam said the early warning signs could already be seen in the lower sperm count among obese men in the last 50 years, believed to be due to unbalanced diet.
"Obesity usually stems from unhealthy eating trends, such as consuming food that has a lot of fat like nasi lemak, fried chicken and so on.
"Besides poor diet, stress at the workplace also results in lower sperm count due to disrupted sperm production," he told Bernama here.
Dr Thanikasalam from the Srivari Women's Specialist Centre here, said even children faced this risk based on statistics which showed that 25 to 30 per cent of children in Malaysia were obese.
"This is because children nowadays enjoy fastfood almost everyday and the food contains high fat and cholesterol, causing obesity."
Hence, Dr Thanikasalam has come out in support of Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek to ban television advertisements on fastfood to discourage the consumption of such food.
He also deemed raw food like chicken sold at the markets "unhealthy" because they contained high levels of chemicals from hormone injections to make the chickens grow bigger than normal.
"The public should avoid eating too much chicken and eat more fish, vegetables and fruits," he advised.
"Malaysians need to change their eating habits to reduce the risk of getting various diseases."