Dubai: UAE launched a national nutrition strategy to help fight obesity and its related complications and may force fast food groups to inform people what exactly they are eating.
Unhealthy eating and lack of exercise has given UAE the dubious distinction of being the country with the second-highest incidence of diabetes in the world. A 24 per cent of the population over 20 years of age suffers from the debilitating disease.
The nutrition strategy will include educating people on what to eat to keep healthy, the need to do daily exercise and will promote breastfeeding.
The five-year strategy was advised by the World Health Organisation. A WHO official said one of the recommendations is to force fast food groups to list the content of their foods.
“People should have an informed choice on what they are eating,’ she told Gulf News. She said fast food groups in the US had recently been forced to list the food content.
Dr Salem Al Darmaki, acting director general of the Ministry of Health, said people in the UAE face many health challenges and that there has been an increase in non-communicable diseases as diabetes, heart diseases and high blood pressure, all due to improper nutrition and lack of physical activity.
