To commemorate this year’s World Obesity Day (WOD), the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has again called for a comprehensive healthy food policies to strengthen local diets and tackle the country’s rising obesity and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) burden.
In a statement issued by the Media and Communication Officer of CAPPA, Robert Egbe, the public health advocacy group highlighted the alarming data on global obesity scourge, saying it reinforced its agitations for urgent measures to discourage Nigerians from excessively consuming sugary drinks, which are a risk factor for overweight and obesity.
These measures, CAPPA said, include raising the tax imposed on Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSB) from the current N10, to N130 per litre or by any rate that is not less than 20 per cent of the product’s retail price.
World Obesity Day encourages practical solutions to help people achieve and maintain a healthy weight, undertake proper treatment, and reverse the obesity crisis.
CAPPA aligned with the WOD theme of “Changing Systems, Healthier Lives” which puts the onus on systems that influence the drivers of obesity and related chronic diseases to act, noting that these include the food systems, healthcare services, governments, media, and workplaces and communities.
Executive Director of CAPPA, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “These systems are directly or indirectly linked to the increasing rates of obesity,” arguing that the case for speedy action has been reinforced by the grim reality of local and global forecasts on diabetes.
According to the World Obesity Federation (WOF), 1.9 billion or one in every four people will be living with obesity in 2035, costing the global economy about $4.32 trillion. This is twice the figure for 2010. Worse yet, there will be a 100 per cent increase in childhood obesity between 2020 and 2035, while one in every four people are likely to be living with obesity by 2035.
“Ten years after the international health community set aside March 4 as World Obesity Day, it is disheartening to see a condition once thought to be more prevalent in wealthy nations, steadily creeping among populations in low- and middle-income countries, including Nigeria,” Akinbode said.
He noted that as of 2020, there were more than 21 million overweight and 12 million obese persons in the Nigerian population aged 15 years or more, accounting for an age-adjusted prevalence of about 20 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively, according to the National Library of Medicine.
CAPPA, therefore, urged the government at all levels to pay greater attention to the worrisome practice of food corporations flooding the markets and grooming Nigerians with unhealthy, ultra-processed food products targeted at children and other classes of the country’s teeming youth population, to the detriment of their health and nutritious, indigenous diets.
Oluwafemi noted that these junk foods have been linked to overweight and obesity, adding that this unhealthy diet crisis is costing the country invaluable manpower and productivity loss due to hospitalisation and chronic disability of NCD victims.
Citing the WHO, he added that obese children were at a higher risk of developing serious health problems including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and other respiratory problems, sleep disorders and liver disease.
“Childhood obesity also increases the risk of obesity, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), premature death and disability in adulthood. Taking action on obesity is a critical step in reducing the burden of other chronic non-communicable diseases, hence the call for a raise in the SSB tax-a pro-health levy-to N130 per litre and the proceeds ploughed into the healthcare sector,” the group added.
