Dubai - Lack of awareness on proper nutrition, food and amount of foods consumed can lead to obesity and other health related conditions.
Published: Sun 26 Mar 2017, 10:07 AM
Last updated: Sun 26 Mar 2017, 12:11 PM
Children as young as 10 in the UAE are said to be 1.8 times more obese than those in the US, a frequency that is almost thrice the published international standards.
According to statistics from the First United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, schoolchildren/youth aged between 10 and 18 in the UAE are said to be more obese than those in the US. A World Health Organisation (WHO) report has classified the UAE as the second highest for obesity rates in the world, according to 'How the UAE can reduce the Prevalence of Obesity among the Youth? - A Health Policy Perspective' report done by Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, UAE, and Walden University, USA. The report was published in Advances Obesity, Weight Management & Control last month.
The UAE Vision 2021 and Heal campaignThe UAE's Vision 2021 National Agenda aims to achieve a world class healthcare system. Within this agenda, one indicator is prevalence of obesity among children which has been adopted from the WHO.
Meanwhile, the overall purpose of the Healthy Eating And Living ( Heal) public health campaign is to make the youth more aware of healthier eating styles and active living exercises. Another goal could be to equip and provide the youth with the ways of expanding and improving their nutrition programmes/diets through practice and exercises, which would bring about the social change among the youth and in turn assist in behavioral changes for a positive outcome. And the target audience could be UAE youth with ages of 15 to 29 years.
The Heal policy highlights this public health issue within the UAE context as obesity among the youths, and the framework for implementing a public health campaign among the UAE youths, whereby, contributing to attaining one of the UAE Vision 2021 National agenda targets.
A World Health Organisation report has classified the UAE as the second highest for obesity rates in the world. Besides, children in the UAE are said to be 1.8 times more obese than those in the US.
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Dr Immanuel Azaad Moonesar R.D., Assistant Professor of Health Policy, Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government, who was part of the study, suggests the Heal (Healthy Eating And Living) policy based on the Health Belief Model.
"This could be a vehicle to promote healthier lifestyles and good nutrition through changing eating habits and choices," he said.
Though the programme has not been launched officially as yet; however, there are current plans being worked upon to have the programme launched at the schools via the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) and Ministry of Education in collaboration with hospitals and wellness centres across the UAE.
Dr Moonesar said that the Heal programme is only one aspect of the public health campaign.
"A self-assessment tool will be implemented using a School Health Index where that ratings of the eating habits, levels of physical activity could be recorded at the start, during and end of the term or semester (for instance 12 week period)," he told Khaleej Times.
The goal of the Heal campaign would be to equip young people with ways of improving what they eat and how they eat it through practice and exercises.
"Simple changes can have a huge positive effect and by working together with young people to change their behaviour, that change is more likely to be sustainable," he added.
With obesity, there are associated diseases, which tend to plague the UAE adults later including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension and others.
The Heal policy highlights this public health issue within the UAE context as obesity among the youths, and the framework for implementing a public health campaign among the UAE youths, whereby, contributing to attaining one of the UAE Vision 2021 National agenda targets for reducing the prevalence of obesity.
Researches call for effective intervention
WHO list of fattest countries
In 2010, prevalence of obesity among children was 14.4 per cent in the UAE; such that this national agenda indicator targets to reduce the current value by 17 per cent.
The UAE is part of the GCC countries and ranks 18 on the 2007 WHO list of the fattest countries with 68.3 per cent of its citizens with an unhealthy weight. In another study (2010), the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) measured the dietary behaviours and physical activity of students in grades 8, 9 and 10, ages 13-15 years.
The UAE was also classified as the second highest for obesity rates in the world.
Social media effective tool to reach out to universities and schools
In a recent research report from (MBRSG) there were over 400,000 new Facebook users. Furthermore, the UAE is the second highest in the Arab world to have a high penetration rate of 58 per cent, indicating persistent growth and pervasive usage of Facebook within the UAE society.
Consequently, the use of Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube would be best useful and effective for the (HEAL) public health campaign at universities/schools among the UAE.
There are two ways for adjusting the Heal public health campaign based on the type of social media to be used in the campaign. One way is to have the university youth to create HEAL discussion groups on distinct topics on Facebook and LinkedIn.
All the youth within the particular Heal campaign own at least a blackberry smart phone where both applications of Facebook and LinkedIn are presently functioning. Therefore, there could be 24/7 interactions and discussions on both applications on the blackberry smart phone.
Another way is to link the public health message directly to their status updates (via the Facebook accounts and LinkedIn), since on average blackberry users have at least 50 users.
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The UAE's Vision 2021 National Agenda aims to achieve a world class healthcare system. Within this agenda, one indicator is prevalence of obesity among children which has been adopted from the WHO.
A UAE public health campaign intervention and strategies is urgently needed at the federal level in order to identify overweight and obese youths.
In 2000, researchers reported that obesity preventative health intervention was needed. More recently researchers concur that there is more an urgent need for addressing this health concern among the youth.
"There is a need to aggressively assess these urgent areas of the UAE youth health status and formation effective preventative health interventions," said Dr Moonesar.
How can it be assessed and implemented?
Understanding patterns that influence eating patterns, nutritional decision-making may become easier.
One way to determine nutritional health patterns is to evaluate the consumer's grocery shopping experience and dining-out experience.
Without an awareness of proper nutrition, the foods and amount of foods consumed can lead to obesity and other health related conditions, according to the study.
The overall purpose of the Heal public health campaign implementation and launch could be to make the youth more aware of healthier eating styles and active living exercises. Another goal could be to equip and provide the youth with the ways of expanding and improving their nutrition programmes/diets through practice and exercises, which would bring about the social change among the youth and in turn assist in behavioral changes for a positive outcome.
Therefore, the target audience could be UAE youth with ages of 15 to 29 years.
"The main reason for selecting the UAE youth in universities/schools is that most of these youth are situated in the university residences, where they have a direct influence over their eating habits and food choices," said Dr Moonesar.
Another reason is that 75 per cent of youth both males and females have basic knowledge on health and diseases associated with eating habits. Also, among the youth in the Arab countries, social networking sites (SNS) are very popular. On average, the Arab youth has 100 persons attached to their account.
"It is known that among the Arab youths, the SNS plays an integral part of shaping the perception of the political views and Arab cultures and customs," which can be used effectively.
Why the need for effective implementation
The increasing prevalence and serious consequences of obesity have provoked public health campaigns for broad public health solutions that reach beyond clinic settings.
Educational institutes are the ultimate surroundings for population-based intercessions to addressing obesity. In implementation of Heal, the UAE has to be aligned with the main objective of promoting a healthier lifestyle through healthy eating and active living activities.
The implementation process would include a number of public relations strategies such as the campus news media in order to provide an effective means of communicating the health information to the university. Another implementation method is conducting the self-assessment on the university youth using a School Health Index where the ratings of the eating habits, levels of physical activity could be recorded at the start, during and end of the 12-week Heal campaign general education course.
"Our nutritional habits are formed around the meals prepared and the eateries we have come to enjoy over the years." Consulting nutrition labels can give the needed requirements for how much of a food item makes up a serving size.
The food labels consider calories, fats, carbohydrates, protein, sugar, and fiber for each serving size.
Methods for effective evaluation of Heal
The methods for evaluation of the effectiveness of the Heal Campaign would be discussed as follows:
One way is through weight management. The weight of each of the youth could be measured at the start of the campaign, then at the mid-way of the campaign and then the final week.
Another way is to have open ended questions at the beginning of the campaign to have an idea of the health literacy levels and then pose the same questions at the end of the 12 weeks of the Heal public health campaign and draw the conclusions of the effectiveness.
Another way is through a debates competition at the 12th week, where the youth would be asked to argue a real case study and properly assess the situation and proposed ways of helping to fix the dilemmas.
Another way is to have games on reading food labels and identifying the good and bad items within he food items.
There are two ways in which the Heal public health campaign can promote social change. One way is through the promotion of daily healthier eating of balance diets which is a combination of just right amount of nutrients (carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals and vitamins) and portion controls. Exercise activities can be held at the university campus through walking, stair-climbing, jogging, running, swimming and sports. These two ways can promote social change among the youths at the university.
asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com
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