Healthy lifestyle campaigns fail to solve weighty problem

Star: KUALA LUMPUR: The millions of ringgit spent on healthy lifestyle campaigns since the 1990s have gone to waste.
Malaysians have not heeded the advice about reducing weight to stay healthy.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican said 30% of Malaysians remained overweight and another 30% listed as obese based on the Asia Pacific Body Mass Index guidelines.
“With 60% of the population either overweight or obese, that’s not healthy,” he said after opening the 13th Scientific Meeting of the National Heart Association of Malaysia yesterday.
He said the Health Ministry would soon introduce drastic measures to address the problems of overweight and obesity among Malaysians.
“For a start, all Health Ministry staff members have been told to shape up,” he said.
Asked if the private sector should organise exercise programmes for their staff, Dr Ismail said the ministry would encourage people to initiate such programmes.
He said deaths from heart problems were rare in the old days but after the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, heart attacks were a major cause of premature death.
“Cardiovascular diseases and their treatment continue to consume a large portion of the healthcare budget,” he said.
The Malaysian Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) Registry 2006 showed that there were 31,186 admissions to the 73 coronary care units in Malaysia.
Dr Ismail said a rough estimate of the incidence of heart disease in Malaysia was 141 per 100,000 population.