Worrying obesity trend in Sarawak

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This file photo shows a woman walking with an overweight person in Berck-sur-Mer, northern France. Being overweight shaves about a year off a person’s life expectancy, a heavy price which soars to about 10 years for the severely obese, a large-scale study. — AFP photo

This file photo shows a woman walking with an overweight person in Berck-sur-Mer, northern France. Being overweight shaves about a year off a person’s life expectancy, a heavy price which soars to about 10 years for the severely obese, a large-scale study found. — AFP photo

KUCHING: The rise of obesity has affected Sarawak’s youth, aged 18 and above, with 18.4 per cent of them being considered as obese and 30.1 per cent overweight.

These figures show that the prevalence is slightly higher than the national level which recorded a 17.7 per cent obesity and 30 per cent overweight.

However, for diabetes, it stood lower than the national record of 17.5 per cent, with 14.8 per cent of its youth suffering from diabetes, a non-communicable disease (NCD).

This information was obtained from the 2015 National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) that was conducted by the Institute for Public Health.

Health Minister, Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam recently said in a statement on NHMS 2015 at Putrajaya that generally the findings indicated an increase in weight issues, compared to studies conducted in 2006 and 2011, which stood at 29.1 and 29.4 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, two other NCDs, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia were found to be high in Sarawak, with 37.3 per cent suffering from hypertension (compared to the national record of 30.3 per cent) and 48.6 per cent with hypercholesterolemia (compared to the national record of 47.7 per cent). – Bernama