Stalked by hunger but fighting obesity: Kenya’s hidden food crisis | Obesity
The children of Bees Haven kindergarten are about 15 minutes into their weekly taekwondo class when their instructor has some stern words for them. “You guys are not panting,” says Lizzanne Adhiambo, with a grin. “I want to see the power! Let’s punch!”
Aside from a certain amount of confusion over left and right hands, Adhiambo’s pupils obey. With alternating arms they punch out in front of them, 15 four- to six-year-olds, wearing white training uniforms , shouting “Yeah!” as the instructor counts from 1 to 10.
“They love it so much,” says Beryl Itindi, director of the pre-primary school in Syokimau, on the south-western outskirts of Nairobi.
After class, the children sit down for lunch of beef stew, leafy greens, ugali – maize flour porridge – and fresh fruit. “Thank you for our food and our many blessings,” they chorus. “Amen.”
These children are at the forefront of new efforts to foster lifelong habits of exercise and healthy eating – and stave off a foe increasingly visible in Kenya’s towns and cities: obesity.
As in much of Africa, the number of people classed as obese in Kenya is on the rise: by 2030, the World Obesity Atlas says 1.4 million five to 19-year-olds will be obese. The WHO considers a person with a body mass index (BMI) over 25 to be overweight, while a BMI over 30 is obese.
A 2015 survey – the most recent undertaken – found 20% of Kenyan men and more than 50% of women were either overweight or obese.
NCDs are simply that; unlike, say, a virus, you can’t catch them. Instead, they are caused by a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioural factors. The main types are cancers, chronic respiratory illnesses, diabetes and cardiovascular disease – heart attacks and stroke. Approximately 80% are preventable, and all are on the rise, spreading inexorably around the world as ageing populations and lifestyles pushed by economic growth and urbanisation make being unhealthy a global phenomenon.
NCDs, once seen as illnesses of the wealthy, now have a grip on the poor. Disease, disability and death are perfectly designed to create and widen inequality – and being poor makes it less likely you will be diagnosed accurately or treated.
Investment in tackling these common and chronic conditions that kill 71% of us is incredibly low, while the cost to families, economies and communities is staggeringly high.
In low income countries NCDs – typically slow and debilitating illnesses – are seeing a fraction of the money needed being invested or donated. Attention remains focused on the traditional disease threats, yet cancer death rates have long sped past the death toll from malaria, TB and HIV/ Aids combined.
A common condition is a new Guardian series reporting on NCDs in the developing world; their prevalence, the solutions, the causes and consequences, telling the stories of people living with these illnesses.
Tracy McVeigh, editor
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A common condition
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The human toll of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is huge and rising. These illnesses end the lives of approximately 41 million of the 56 million people who die every year – and three quarters of them are in the developing world.
NCDs are simply that; unlike, say, a virus, you can’t catch them. Instead, they are caused by a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioural factors. The main types are cancers, chronic respiratory illnesses, diabetes and cardiovascular disease – heart attacks and stroke. Approximately 80% are preventable, and all are on the rise, spreading inexorably around the world as ageing populations and lifestyles pushed by economic growth and urbanisation make being unhealthy a global phenomenon.
NCDs, once seen as illnesses of the wealthy, now have a grip on the poor. Disease, disability and death are perfectly designed to create and widen inequality – and being poor makes it less likely you will be diagnosed accurately or treated.
Investment in tackling these common and chronic conditions that kill 71% of us is incredibly low, while the cost to families, economies and communities is staggeringly high.
In low income countries NCDs – typically slow and debilitating illnesses – are seeing a fraction of the money needed being invested or donated. Attention remains focused on the traditional disease threats, yet cancer death rates have long sped past the death toll from malaria, TB and HIV/ Aids combined.
A common condition is a new Guardian series reporting on NCDs in the developing world; their prevalence, the solutions, the causes and consequences, telling the…
Read More: Stalked by hunger but fighting obesity: Kenya’s hidden food crisis | Obesity