THERE is, and with good reason, a great deal of fear these days about dengue fever. In the last few months, incontrovertible data from all over the National Capital Region and in many provinces point to the onset of a national epidemic, so much so that most people will have known of someone whose family has been, in some fashion, affected by the disease.
Because of the disease’s dreaded effects, it attracts a lot of attention from health authorities. There is a lot of attention being paid to cleaning stagnant waterways and other places where the offending mosquitos could breed. There is also a great emphasis being placed on health education, with medical and social workers teaching people how to avoid getting infected with dengue.
Imagine for a moment, however, that in order to “control” the spread of dengue, health authorities started putting water in places where mosquitoes could breed.
Imagine a situation also when instead of educating people on how to avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes, health officials instead started propagating incorrect and conflicting information on dengue disease prevention, so that people would not know what the right thing to do was.
This would be total chaos, right? And certainly, it would just accelerate the spread of dengue, instead of preventing it? Well, consider this other situation then.
There is, today, a disease far more widespread than dengue will ever be. The thing is, health authorities don’t seem to be too concerned about stopping its spread.
There are places that are responsible for spreading the affliction to as many people as possible. However, no one is concerned about closing them down.
There is not a great deal of education being propagated to stop this disease. On the contrary, health authorities, at best, are taking an attitude of benign neglect over the whole epidemic. At worst, the “education” that’s out there is not only outdated, but now totally incorrect. Instead of helping people avoid the disease, the advice being propagated just confuses the cause and prevention of the disease, in the process not really doing anyone a favor.
The disease? It’s called obesity.
Yup, being overweight or obese is a disease. It is a very dangerous condition to have, and afflicts a great number of Filipinos of all ages. And yet, no one seems to be paying it with the attention it deserves as a national health crisis.
Ever wonder how widespread it is? Just observe many of our policemen on duty.
Or watch the proceedings of our legislature. You can also walk into any classroom in any college, high school or primary school all over the country. Or, just simply stand on any street corner in any of our cities, and watch people go by. If you had no idea before, once you do these you will have a pretty good picture of the extent of the crisis.
Compared to dengue, it’s not as easy to eradicate this affliction. There is no way health authorities could close down all the Jollibees, McDonalds and Potato Corners in the country.
But they could, if they choose to, propagate the right knowledge about nutrition to the population. They could also institute policies that would tax products that promote obesity such as milk tea, sweetened coffee, soft drinks and ice cream.
They have done this with tobacco and alcohol, so doing this with sugar is certainly not a far-fetched thought.