The chairperson of the occasion, Dr Angela Ofeiba Amedo, presenting a certificate to Toclometi Renould who read Prosthetics at KNUST
Ghana is in danger of getting into child obesity crisis, Dr Matilda Asante, a senior lecturer at the Department of Nutrition & Dietetics of the University of Ghana, has warned.
She has, therefore, called for hard-hitting awareness campaigns to try to stem the problem as obesity is gradually becoming normal in society, making more children face health risk.
Addressing the induction and oath-swearing ceremony of Allied Health interns at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, the dietician said the growing overweight phenomenon in children had come about due to the eating of junk foods and carbonated drinks.
“The reason we are heading to crisis of child obesity is because too many of our children are eating too much of the wrong kind of food. They are consuming high carbonated drinks, gizzards, sausages and meat pies, and they are not exercising enough,” she said.
The senior lecturer who was speaking under the theme: ‘Prevention & Control of Chronic Diseases Through Intensive Promotion of Healthy Lifestyles & Diet’, argued that individuals were responsible for their own diet and physical activity.
Mrs Asante said a report by the Ghana Food Survey for the 2012 revealed that 16 percent overweight children were among school children.
Out of the number, 21 percent were found in private school, while 11 percent of the overweight children were in public schools across the country.
According to her, the nation could surpass the doomsday scenario already set out if immediate steps were not taken to reverse the growing trend, intimating that children, of late, had become inactive, sitting behind computer games and television sets whenever they were at home.
Mrs Asante said all and sundry have a role to play in improving the health and well-being of the public, and children in particular, whilst bemoaning lack of physical education in the school curriculum.
The Registrar of Allied Health Professions Council (AHPC), Dr Clement Opoku Okrah, lamented the current situation where some allied health professionals practise without license.
He said it was an offence for any institution or facility to engage the services of an unlicensed professional to practice, and called on such organisations to do the right thing before the council begins to crack the whip.
“My advice also goes to all allied health training institutions both public and private to that they are required by law to obtain accreditation for their institutions and programmes without which their students will not be inducted, or allowed to write the license examination,” he asserted and added that this would make it impossible for them to practice their chosen profession.
FROM Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi