April 7, 2002	Sunday	Muharram 23, 1423

KARACHI, April 6: The World Health Day (WHD), being celebrated today with the theme ‘Move for Health’, is aimed to underline the importance of physical activity to check non-communicable diseases commonly described as the ‘afflictions of modern living’.

According to the World Health Organization, more than two million deaths each year are caused by lack of physical activity, which is the leading cause of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and obesity.

In most parts of the world non-communicable diseases have become assumed epidemic proportions, due mainly to changing lifestyles involving reduced physical activity, unhealthy diets, tobacco, substance abuse and waning spirituality.

While the trend is universal, its afflictions are more pronounced in the developing countries like ours. Poverty, ignorance, wanting healthcare, violence, overcrowding, pollution and lack of basic facilities, besides breeding communicable diseases also have a direct bearing on the rising incidence of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, CAD, depression, anxiety and osteoporosis. Gender-bias, ever-shifting policy paradigms and changes in social and economic realities are the other culprits.

In this scenario, WHO believes that it is time to direct global interventions to prevention as much as cure.

Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, director-general of the WHO, has said that in order to draw attention to the issue, the WHD this year will be devoted to highlighting the significance of physical fitness and healthy life-style. An increased focus on prevention will bring greater benefits to the entire public health community, he said.

In his message, regional director WHO, Eastern Mediterranean Region, Dr Hussein A. Gezairy has stated that “Over 60 per cent of the world population is not physically active enough to gain health benefits and this is especially true for girls and women. Most countries in the region have levels of adult overweight and obesity greater than 30 per cent. In adult females of the region the incidence is at 40 per cent.”

It would, however, be incorrect to link obesity and overweight with affluence and overconsumption.

Countries already battling with the burden of communicable diseases and malnutrition are also unlikely to dodge an epidemic of non- communicable diseases in the near future. These twin epidemics, if left unchecked, may well devastate nations.

The WHO EMRO chief in his message has rightly said that prevention and health promotion have not been on the agenda of the priorities of policy-makers.

The challenge in this respect is to realize the importance of acting together for future benefits and to recognize prevention as a challenge for governments and individuals and the different partners concerned.

These partners include local government, educational institutions, transport sector, industry and commerce sector and the