The South Asian countries have joined hands to launch a campaign "Run for Healthy Life" in each country simultaneously with a view to engaging younger generation into adopting healthy lifestyle to prevent obesity and diabetes in the region.
"The South Asian countries constitute bulk of the burden of diabetes, categorizing the region to be 'in a statement of emergency', which prompted the campaign launch to motivate younger generation to do exercise and to learn to eat healthy," said Dr S Abbas Raza, President South Asian Federation of Endocrine Societies (SAFES), while speaking at a press conference along with representative members of SAFES from Pakistan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Dr Raza said that India is fully on-board although SAFES member from India could not make it to this regional event. Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a 4-day 15th Annual PES-SAFES Summit 2017 titled "Together for Endocrinology", organized by Pakistan Endocrine Society - South Asian Federation of Endocrine Societies (PES-SAFES) here at a local hotel from November 23-26, 2017, Dr Abbas Raza regretted that the kids and young generation had almost been imprisoned in their rooms due to technology, while emphasizing the need to bring them out to the playgrounds to run and play games themselves.
The Endocrine Societies from Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sir Lanka will launch this campaign together to create awareness about obesity, one of the most important risk factors of diabetes. The partners of this campaign aim to prevent the increasing prevalence of obesity by reaching out to schools and broadly to younger generation and conducting awareness sessions on changing lifestyles and increase physical activities, especially running. "The competitions of running, etc, would be conducted in which not only winners will be rewarded but the participants from bottom half of the competition would be motivated and encouraged for their behavior change towards healthy lifestyle," said Dr Raza.
He said that SAFES considered it as its prime responsibility to work for awareness that obesity and diabetes was preventable - all we need is regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle. "Following these simple measures, we can save our future generation from the risk of serious diseases," he added.
Professor Dr Ali Jawa, President of PES from Pakistan, said that Pakistan was ranked as 9th most obese country in the world, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study published in The Lancet medical journal. "There are very limited entities working to address this concern, which is leading to diabetes and other serious diseases, putting our younger generation at risk," he added.
He was optimistic that this campaign will not only assist in preventing obesity but also diabetes and other diseases associated with obesity.
The SAFES representatives in South Asia including Professor AK Azad Khan from Bangladesh, Dr Ali Lateef from Maldives, Dr Noel Somasundaram from Sri Lanka, Dr Dina Sharistha from Nepal pledged to launch vigorous campaign "Run for Healthy Life" in their respective countries respectively. "Insufficient physical activity is a major risk-factor for obesity, which is associated with multiple co-morbidities," they added.
While emphasizing upon younger generation to adopt healthy lifestyle, they advised people against eating fast food, soft/energy drinks and sugary items, which were 'poisonous' for their health and well-being. They further observed that the energy drink companies were doing massive advertisements and sponsoring sports events, which easily influenced the kids and younger generation to fall in their trap.
Later, the representative members of SAFES from South Asian countries unveiled a special logo for the 'Run for Healthy Life' campaign.
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