The government’s focus on treating chronic disease neglects the importance of obesity and the benefits of preventive health measures tailored to gender and socioeconomic circumstances.
School nutrition programmes help reduce the risk of children developing obesity.
Tiger Brands Foundation
Reinforcement of the idea that exercise will lead to weight loss acts as a disincentive for those who stick to their exercise goals to only find the scales haven’t turned in their favour.
South Africans need to reduce the number of sugar-sweetened beverages they consume.
shutterstock
With one can of cool drink containing six teaspoons of sugar – your recommended sugar intake for the day – there is a need to reduce the number of sugar-sweetened beverages South Africans consume.
The diabetes self-test: up to 16% of pregnant women are positive.
Image Point Fr
It affects nearly one in five women, and half go on to develop type 2 diabetes. It’s one of the great intervention opportunities that public health overseers keep ignoring.
The dimpling of cellulite is caused by alterations to the layer of fat beneath the skin.
wckiw/Shutterstock
Most women (85%) and a small number of men have cellulite, usually on the thighs, buttocks and upper arms. It’s a normal pattern of fat for people of all shapes and sizes.
Four year old Lu Zhihao takes a nap at a kindergarten in Foshan, China in this file picture.
Joe Tan/Reuters
Most of us know that obesity is a growing problem across the globe but would you call it a disease? While it may seem like a semantic debate, it is actually a serious issue with major implications.
Cutting your kilojoule intake by 2,000kJ a day will help you lose 5kg – a clothes size – in three months.
Lindsay Széchényi/Flickr
Want to drop a dress or pants size? Then losing five kilograms, or about 5% of your body weight will help that zipper start to close with ease. In case you need another reason, keeping a small amount of…
The energy imbalance gap is how many calories you consume versus how many you burn. Understanding how it differs among different populations could lead to better policies to target obesity.
A Western diet may be negatively affecting your brain not just your belly.
Jams
Do you eat only when you’re actually hungry? Many of us eat even when our bodies don’t need food. Just the thought of food entices us to eat. We think about food when we see other people eating, when we…
Being lean and unfit is worse than being fat and fit.
Raúl González/Flickr
This month, the toxic combination of extreme heat and summer holidays will probably mean that you’re going to expose more flesh than you would like to someone whose opinion you care about. January is the…
The average Australian adult gains 0.416 kg a year, so staying weight-neutral is a major accomplishment.
TaraPatta/Shutterstock
If you’re an adult and live in Australia, you’re more likely to be overweight or obese than not: 63% and 37% respectively. This excess weight is associated with increased premature death and disease, and…
Scottish diabetes rates have rocketed, but there are promising signs.
Tom Wang
The number of people with diabetes in the UK has more than doubled over the past two decades, with more than 3.8 million people currently affected. Around 10% of them have Type 1 diabetes, which is caused…
An expanding waistline, particularly around the abdomen, is a key indicator that people will develop serious or life-threatening…
A small proportion of overweight and obese people are metabolically healthy but that doesn’t mean we should become complacent about aiming for a healthy weight.
Isaac Brown/Stocky Bodies
The idea that people can be healthy at any weight has gained credence in recent years, despite widespread evidence that obesity creates health risks. While the idea is attractive, it’s also dangerous because…
Professor and Programme Director, SA MRC Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science - PRICELESS SA (Priority Cost Effective Lessons in Systems Strengthening South Africa), University of the Witwatersrand