Why the increasing cases of overnutrition?

Dec 14, 2009

FREDRICK Kizito, the president of the Uganda Dietetic Association, attributes the changing trend to a radical shift in the structure and composition of diets from wholesome to refined fast foods, fuelled by urbanisation and technological improvement.

By Vision Reporter

FREDRICK Kizito, the president of the Uganda Dietetic Association, attributes the changing trend to a radical shift in the structure and composition of diets from wholesome to refined fast foods, fuelled by urbanisation and technological improvement.

“Because of increased wage employment, people have no time to prepare food. We are rushing for fast foods like chocolates, soft drinks, ice cream and chips, with lots of sugar and fat,” he observes.

Explaining that overnutrition happens when the body takes in much more than required, Kizito says Ugandans’ problems are dominated by much sugar and fat.

“It would be good to have specialised clinics on nutrition and dieting, but they are not there. What we see are increasing numbers of clinics for problems of poor diets.

We are seeing diabetes clinics, hypertension clinics, cancers…yet the disease are very difficult to manage,” he says.

kizito also observes that there is increasing concern, especially among the elite, on the kinds of food they are eating. “But this often comes too late. They enroll for dietary classes when they have contracted the disease and want to control progress or treat the ailment.

“Currently, the only way we get the information is through the diabetes clinics and the like. Even the very clinics that can offer the information are few and concentrated in Kampala,” he argues.

Kizito says as dieticians, they are charged with ‘helping people understand how to constitute health diets to prevent disease-causing lifestyle’.

“The problem now is information. Everyone thinks they understand nutrition-eat greens, fruits, vegetables, reduce fat and ensure a balanced meal. You even find aerobic instructors advising on nutrition as if they are experts,” he says.

“But we cannot blame them. There are only 60 trained dieticians, yet about only 20 are practising. The rest are working in non-governmental organisations managing food security,” he says.

He says dietetics is a new profession, with the first batch of graduates in 2001. The programme is only run by Kyambogo University.

“The big challenge is informing policy-makers about the role of dieticians. For instance, we cannot manage HIV without dieticians.

We have to design the diets for these patients that go hand-in-hand with the drugs they are taking to minimise adverse drug interactions,” he says.

“We can also manage under nutrition in hunger stricken areas by for example, designing a good meal on one dollar,” he says.

Kizito adds that the major category of people that need dieticians are HIV, TB patients, pregnant and lactating mothers, children under five, elderly and adolescents.

“We are observing anaemia in mothers, giving birth to low birth babies, increasing caesarean cases as a result of narrow pelvic bones…all stemming from poor nutrition right from childhood and adolescence.

“We should target secondary schools and universities. Most students feed on chips and chikomando when they would otherwise achieve better with the same money,” he says.

Kizito urges the Government to put therapeutic feeds on the list of essential medicines.

“None of these hospitals in Kampala has a dietician. We want to start a dietetic centre or clinic with the support of the British Dietetic Association to advice people.

We shall have a library where they can access books to read. Then we can eat to live,” he says.

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