Sporticals

obesity in hong kong 

 

For my personal issue, I decided to focus on Obesity in Hong Kong.

I've noticed that this has become an increasingly worrying problem here, people in HK are becoming more urbanized, and there are more and more western fast food chains in Hong Kong.

Such as, McDonalds, Triple O and Subway. Fast food is cheap and well known. Unfortunately, this has lead to more children having diabetes and obesity.

I decided to focus on obesity because I think that this is a big problem in HK, also, obesity has become a growing of issue here and I want to find ways to help and prevent it.

 

 

Statistics and Facts:

Obesity rates in local primary schools in 1998 has jumped from 16 per cent to 21 per cent over the course of 13 years.

The main cause of the growing obesity rate is the switch in popularity from sports to video games,  and this has created a large percentage of obese youths and more fast food industries. Obesity ratings in Hong Kong have surged from 5% of children aged 2-14 (1991) to 17.8% (2005) and to 21.4% (2010). This increase is definitely damaging to the future population of Hong Kong.

 

 

Symptoms and effects:

These problems could lead to other health issues such as respiratory problems, lowered self esteem, anxiety, diabetes, back and joint pains, heart diseases and depression. Fortunately, there are many ways we can prevent this and lower the obesity rate in Hong Kong. For example, you could do more exercise to keep fit, this is very easy to achieve in Hong Kong and there are many opportunities.  Go for a jog , a walk or join fitness clubs. You could also eat a healthier diet and make sure to keep your body hydrated so that you can have control on how much weight you gain.

 

 

How to help?:

There are many ways to help prevent obesity even in a big city like Hong Kong such as going out to gyms, or even better, going out to natural, community parks/ locations provided all over HK.

Not to mention, there are also events held by the government to help raise awareness of this growing problem, for example, the rat race. This event not only helps get everyone involved and exercising, it also helps raise lots of money for charity every year.

Also, in addition to exercise, there are many alternatives to fast food, like organic food and vegetables you can buy in the wet market or some local foods. Such as, cafe de coral being the better choice its healthy and also quite cheap.

Hong Kong offers many opportunities for a healthy, better lifestyle, we hope you take them and have fun doing so!