Obese Told not to lose hope
By Shareen Han

Bandar Seri Begawan -IT IS never too late for overweight and obese people to start exercising or to switch over healthy eating habits, a diet expert at the Ministry of Health explained recently.

Nora Yassin told The Brunei Times that losing weight is not easy, but people "need to start (exercising) somewhere at some point, and then it will become a routine once you get started".

She said that setting realistic goals was essential to reducing weight as well as significantly decreasing blood cholesterol. "Sometimes, not losing weight does not necessarily reflect in your blood parameters; it does not mean you have not made any weight improvements if your weight is still the same," she went on to say.

She further explained that even if one's body weight, remains the same, one's health will improve at a steady rate if one continues to exercise in the lbng run.

She said that there was no specific ideal weight for every person. "This is controversial because it really depends on the person themselves, such as their age and how active they are.

A person's genes, -Nora said, can be a factor in obesity. ‘A child of an obese parent is more likely to be obese," she said.

Nora is also advising the public against resorting to the Atkins diet or the low carbohydrate eating plan to reduce weight.

She said that the Atkins diet had been questioned due to its unconventional low carbohydrate but high protein diet. She noted that Dr Robert Atkins, the pioneer of the diet, died from a heart attack.

"I still think exercise is the most effective and healthy way to losing weight," she said.

Nora, who works across seven community health centres in the Brunei-Muara district, pointed out that location and the availability of food plays a role in determining whether there would be more overweight children in a locality.

She said that overweight and obese children were more prevalent amongst school children above five years old.

According to data from the Ministry of Health, 10.2 per cent of children fewer than five who were living in the Belait district were overweight, the highest number among the four districts in Brunei.

Timbering had the lowest number of overweight children in that age group: 7.7 per cent.

According to Time magazine, Asia's economic transformation has left many of its inhabitants with more food than they can healthily handle. The result has been a surge in obesity, a condition virtually unheard of in Asia a quarter of a century ago.

Michael Demonic and Bryan Walsh wrote in the magazine that food production technology has become much more sophisticated, while exercise has vanished from everyday life.

The International Obesity Task Force estimates that 1.7 million people - one out of every five - worldwide were overweight or obese in 2004. What is even more startling is that experts have forecast that nearly 287 million children could be overweight or obese by 2010 - 8 per cent more than a decade earlier.
 -- Courtesy of the Brunei times

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