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Healthy diet may help prevent noncommunicable diseases — health group
March 23, 2023
This Women’s month, the Healthy Philippines Alliance (HPA), a network of organizations united to prevent and control noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), urged women to watch their diet and eat healthy as a step towards stopping the prevalence of NCDs.
The HPA, with its members Diabetes Philippines and Health Futures Foundation, explained that unhealthy eating habits remain to be a behavioral risk factor to NCDs. This could be in the form of undernutrition, inadequate food intake, or overnutrition, excessive eating which can lead to obesity.
“We want the numbers to go down for women. A balanced diet is key, which, paired with increased physical activity, greatly contributes to reducing NCDs. Plus, making healthier food choices allows women to holistically look and feel good,” said Leyden Florido, Board Member of Diabetes Philippines.
Based on latest data from the World Health Organization’s Country Profile for the Philippines in 2019, NCDs account for 72% of total deaths among Filipino women. This figure is equivalent to 240,000 women dying due to NCDs yearly.
Further, there were more deaths among women with cancer (36,060) than men (32,951). Also, a larger number of women (25,150) died due to diabetes versus men (23,815). While prevalence of obesity was higher among adult women (8%) than men (5%).
In this light, the HPA recommended that women not only clean up their diet, but also access available health care services regularly to ensure better health outcomes.
“Women should make a conscious effort to modify their lifestyles and diet. Cut back on excessive refined sugar, salt, transfat and triglycerides. In addition, have an annual health check up. It is optimal to get screened early rather than detect an NCD at a later stage,” said Rebecca Galvez Tan, Executive Director of Health Futures Foundation.
NCDs are the #1 silent killers nationwide. In fact, seven out of the ten leading causes of death among Filipinos are NCDs, with the top being ischemic heart disease, followed by cerebrovascular disease and cancers (PSA 2022).
Globally, NCDs kill 2 out of every 3 women, accounting for over 19 million deaths yearly or 73% of total deaths among women, data from the NCD Alliance showed.
Of this number, around 9 million women died due to cardiovascular diseases; 1.5 million due to respiratory conditions; 861,000 due to diabetes; and 300,000 from cervical cancer.
In total, NCDs kill 41 million people each year, which is 74% of all deaths worldwide.
-END-
Patricia Loren M. Reyes
Communications Officer
Healthy Philippines Alliance
+639760085498
plamangune@gmail.com
Website : https://phealthalliance.ph/
Facebook : HealthyPHAlliance
Twitter : @PHealthAlliance
