The 1st Saudi and 4th Gulf Conference for Health Promotion opens here Monday with a focus on encouraging a healthy lifestyle to combat the increase in non-contagious ailments such as obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), cancer, and chest complaints. “The rapid change from a simple life to urban living and the changes in both individual and family lifestyles involving an increased dependence on modern technology have led to numerous chronic non-contagious diseases,” said Dr. Khaled Bin Obaid Bawakid, Secretary General of the Family and Community Medicine Society, ahead of the conference. The motto of the conference – “Promoting a Healthy Lifestyle” – is in response to projected rises in the rates of non-contagious illnesses like cancer, atherosclerosis and diabetes, resulting from unhealthy lifestyles. “These diseases form the greatest health threat at the moment, causing 60 percent of deaths in the world, and the percentage is expected to rise to 73 by 2020,” Bawakid said. “Obesity in women in the Kingdom is at 43.3 percent, and 28.6 percent in men. 33.8 percent of Saudis take no exercise.” “Most countries are suffering health-wise from changes in behavior patterns, notably less physical activity, unhealthy diets, smoking, use of alcohol and drug abuse, as well as increased pollution, changes in sleep patterns, inactive behavior such as watching television,” Bawakid said. “This has led to numerous non-infectious chronic diseases, known as the ‘diseases of the age', like obesity, diabetes, high lipid levels, atherosclerosis, different kinds of cancer, and chest inflammations and blockage.” According to Bawakid, the increase in those illnesses has prompted the World Health Organization to appeal to governments to introduce programs promoting healthy lifestyles. Studies, he says, show that a person's healthy lifespan can be increased by up to 11 years through the pursuit of specific activities such as “eating healthily, maintaining an ideal weight, taking physical exercise, refraining from smoking and drugs, and sleeping for eight hours a day”. Obesity and diabetes constitute two afflictions of particular concern, Bawakid says. “Obesity is a major cause of diseases such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, hypertension and strokes. It also causes some types of cancer. Another direct cause of atherosclerosis and heart disease is smoking. WHO indicates that the risk of heart disease falls by 50 percent for non-smokers and persons who have given up smoking. Blood circulation dproblems also drop remarkably over the first three years after quitting smoking.” The increase in diabetes in the Kingdom, Bawakid says, is “very alarming”. “Diabetes rates are also increasing constantly due to the lifestyle in the Kingdom and the lack of exercise,” he said. Bawakid adds that work commitments preventing people taking regular exercise is “no excuse”, neither is there any justifiable reason for not following a healthy diet. “Vegetables, fruit and daily exercise are the most important things,” he said. “We need to stop cooking with animal fats and use instead vegetable oils, reduce fats generally as well as the intake of salt and sugar, and stop smoking,” he said. The conference, organized by the GCC Council of Health Ministers and the Saudi Society for Family and Community Medicine is scheduled to be launched at the Jeddah Hilton Hotel by Prince Talal Bin Abdul Aziz, President of AGFUND and Honorary President of the Saudi Society for Family and Community Medicine, and will hear 50 papers addressing medical programs at home and abroad to promote healthy lifestyles. Those programs concern schools, the media, the role of pharmacies, combating the use of tobacco, and health insurance.
