By Jacob Aggrey
A Dietitian and an Author Wise Chukwudi Letsa has attributed the rising number of obese children in the country to discounted prices placed on junk foods.
He stated emphatically that “junk foods” was sporadic to come by in the past, thereby making its consumption scanty.
According to him, this trend of junk foods poised in almost all vantage points in the country is worrying, causing children to attract “adult onset diseases” such as diabetes, hypertension with high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Speaking with Kafui Dey on the GTV Breakfast Show, the Dietitian contends that
“at a particular age, there should be a corresponding age so a 10-year-old girl shouldn’t be weighing more than 35 kilogram”, he asserts.
He chastised the belief in society that being chubby is the best way to look reiterating that “outstretching the size of children will lead to the production of a lot of fat cells and long time battle with obese and it’s long-lasting complications”.
Mr. Letsa advised parents to have a critical look into the kind of foods children consume to mitigate the long-standing effects of obesity.
He encouraged Ghanaians to consume locally made foods rather than junk foods.
“A lot of our children are anaemic. They don’t have enough blood. So the child may look big and all that but if you test their blood, you will see that they have a “low HB, they look pale”, the Dietitian expressed worry.
Below is the full interview;
