Unhealthy Diets, Obesity, & Diet-related Diseases: Impact in UAE & Neighbors

The problem of unhealthy diets and growing overweight, obesity and diet-related diseases in the UAE and neighboring states

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Background and context

Across the globe, children remain to be the most vulnerable individuals in constant need of care against obesity, undernutrition and other dietary risks, as this is the leading cause of poor health globally.

This report proposal seeks to give insights on the ever-increasing health pandemic obesity more so amongst children in the entire world.This proposal will majorly concentrate on the United Arab Emirates and other eastern Asia countries, which are grappling hard to the fight and contain the childhood obesity.

The area I would like to study in my research.

Obesity placed among the world's most chronic ailments, which kills almost 41 million people annually in world. Initially, obesity listed as a high-risk disease until when it began to kill people on a large scale basis. The common factor I choose obesity and other diets related conditions such as for undernutrition, among others, has been guided by the fact that obesity is more of a lifestyle disease compared to additional nutrition-related chronic disease. The significant causes of obesity is considerately blamed on junk foods and technology, ignorance on the types of food available in the local market, tailored with poor diet choices by the masses residing in the United Arabs Emirates.

It's disturbing that UAE has been registering the high number of obesity in children over the past years despite measures which have been put in place to try and curb and even reduce this menace, which has surprisingly spilled over to her neighbors.

Obesity in children has become a source of concern and a headache to the developing countries who try to imitate the lifestyle of developed countries. According to a survey conducted by the World Health Organization, statistics show a worrying trend, and it is reported that a range between 0.4% to 20% of children are overweight each year, further this report indicates that 34% of these children become obese and overweight. It serves a red flag on the health implications of obesity in children as they are likely to suffer other diseases and complications such as heart disease like high blood pressure, heart attack, they might become asthmatic and have respiratory difficulties. Other opportunistic diseases like cancer may take advantage of a weak body. Children below the age of 4 years tend to suffer from obesity due to lack of adequate exercise because of technology as they chose to spend more time on their computers, laptops and smartphone hence they have minimal time for exposing their bodies which in turn accumulates excess fats caused by consuming a lot of junk foods.

A survey conducted by the World Health report shows that the Eastern part of the Mediterranean region is amongst the worst-hit areas by this obesity pandemic. In the study it was found that obesity not only affects the children but also a good number of adults both males and females thus putting the entire generation at risk. Most obese residing in these areas are growing up in an environment that encourages weight gain and is not conducive and not paying attention to weight loss. Energy imbalance caused by the consumption of excess calories, which the body can use effectively, has resulted from changes in food type, availability, and affordability. Further, this report states that women are more affected by men, and pregnant women are at high risk of transmitting and infecting their unborn of these high-risk health complications.

Nearly 43 million people who reside in the Mediterranean suffer from diabetes class two, which is caused by high intake of surgary, fatty foodstuffs, and these foodstuffs are generally junky .

According to research, which was conducted for over fifteen years, currently, the UAE tops in the world. This research indicated that one in every school-going children is obese compared to the rest of the world where the number is relatively low. This high number have pointed fingers to poor nutritional habits of the local's.

Why do you think this topic is of principal significance

This study seeks to educate the following stakeholders, namely the governments whose citizens are obese or are suffering from other health complications related to obesity.parents whose children are heavy consumers of junky food, children on the importance of exercising the body and abandoning unhealthy lifestyle.

The United Nations guiding principles grants marginalized persons within a community some protection; children fall under these categories since they are the most vulnerable to obesity. Therefore, they deserve protection because their still evolving, and they suffer the most from the epidemic.

This section seeks to highlight the adverse effects of obesity as one of the leading killer diseases and how best to tackle this pandemic to ensure healthy living in society. obesity and its related complications have caused lowered down the wellness and activeness individuals these reducing and slowing down the economic growth leading to an increase in poverty level across the globe.

Secondly, there is a need to educate the masses on the effects of obesity. The World Health Organization has been leading by holding several seminars and conducting numerous researches and surveys in attempting to curb these menace-World Health Organization advocates and champions for healthy eating and healthy living.

A healthy human workforce runs most world economies, obesity, therefore, reduces the activeness of this workforce as most people who are obese cannot actively work and spend most of the time in hospitals seeking treatment. This is not only expensive but also time-consuming. All these factors raise good and formidable objectives that assist in solving the obesity matter.

THE RESEARCH QUESTION

While conducting this research, several questions and issues popped up. If taken into consideration and put into action, they will assist in curbing and drastically reducing the number of obesity cases in the world.

The questions are as followings:

How does environmental sustainability help in prevention of Global syndemic of obesity?

What are the fiscal measures elected leaders, employers, parents, customers, and citizens influence the societal norms and institutional policies of worksites, schools, food retailers, and communities to address and adjudicate to eradicate unhealthy foodstuffs in the market?

How are Economic losses attributable to global syndemic of obesity and undernutrition?

What are the strategic legislations and interventions put in place by the government to promote physical exercise?

What are the effects of reclaiming local food sovereignty, rebuilding indigenous and rejecting the invasions of foreign fast food chains?

What are the challenges do the children encounter in an attempt to access nutritional justice in our legal system?

What are the policies and actions that are needed to address obesity, and ways to strengthen accountability systems for their implementation

Why do you think you are the best placed to undertake this research?

The world has been fighting off various pandemic diseases with zeal and has been quite successful in its journey toward ensuring that the world is free from all types of ailments. Being an advocate fighting for obese children and a healthy society, i do therefore bound by this virtue to be part of the history makers. Having undertaken similar research in my post and undergraduate academic journey, this topic of research has therefore been biding.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Health Organization. "Ending childhood obesity implementation plan: executive summary." World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. Available at: http://tinyurl. com/yd2rlq82 (2017).

World Health Organization. Summary report on the regional meeting on tackling obesity in the Eastern Mediterranean Region with more focus on a healthy diet, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 26 November 2018. No. WHO-EM/NUT/280/E. World Health Organization, Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, 2019.

World Health Organization. "Implementing the WHO recommendations on the marketing of food and nonalcoholic beverages to children in the Eastern Mediterranean Region." (2018]

World Health Organization. Regional strategy on nutrition 2010-2019 and plan of action. No. WHO-EM/NUT/256/E. 2011.

Garde, Amandine, Seamus Byrne, Nikhil Gokani, and Ben Murphy. "A Child Rights-Based Approach to Food Marketing, a Guide for Policy Makers." (2018).

UNICEF 30th anniversary of Conventions on the rights of a child

Lancet Global Syndemic Report 2019