Lifestyle Diseases Like Obesity Are More Dangerous Than Terrorism!
01
March
In a world filled with wars on terror, terror alert-levels and terrorist-videos threatening the next wave of attacks on civilization, it’s hard to believe there could be anything more dangerous than the evil we know as terrorism. But experts at the Oxford Health Alliance Summit, an annual conference of experts from various fields, which is being held in Sydney this year, think that lifestyle diseases like obesity and heart disease are even more dangerous than terrorism:
“Ever since September 11, we’ve been lurching from one crisis to the next, which has really frightened the public,” [US professor of health law, Lawrence] Gostin told AFP later.
“While we’ve been focusing so much attention on that, we’ve had this silent epidemic of obesity that’s killing millions of people around the world, and we’re devoting very little attention to it and a negligible amount of money.”[Yahoo News]
The biggest concern of most of the experts at the conference seems to be the apparent lack of importance awarded to issues like health, fitness and the rise in prevalence of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Case in point: nothing about these issues has been mentioned during the lengthy campaign speeches by the contenders for the U.S. presidency. Sure, healthcare is a hot topic during debates, but a crucial component - prevention by proactive focus on fitness - is sadly lacking.
As the experts rightly point out, certain “high profile” diseases like AIDS and the “in the news” syndromes like SARS capture the limelight in the press and media, but good-old-fashioned conditions are ignored:
Like terrorism, some passing health threats get major government attention and media coverage, while heart and lung disease, diabetes and cancer account for 60 percent of the world’s deaths, the meeting was told.
“It is true that new and re-emerging health threats such as SARS, avian flu, HIV/AIDS, terrorism, bioterrorism and climate change are dramatic and emotive,” said Stig Pramming, the Oxford group’s executive director.
“However, it is preventable chronic disease that will send health systems and economies to the wall.”
It’s time to get back to basics, I think.
I know I’ve said this many times before, but I’ll say it again:
“Prevention is the cure.”
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