Child Obesity in China, you can thank KFC, finger-licking disgusting.
Week 4's class was rather interesting, because we often dismiss chronic disease as the affliction of old age. My grandfather died of lung cancer but he had a long life, full of struggle as he survived the Armenian Genocide, fought the Nazis as a partisan in Greece, but also happiness as he had lots of grandchildren. He was also a lifetimes smoker.
This article was an eye opener as it talked about people in their 30's in Russia and India dying of heart attacks. From what we've discussed in class, the videos and articles we've read so far, it's clear that in the last couple of decades, along with global trade and exchange of information and culture, we've also exported the American diet and lifestyle and with it our cardiovascular disease. Someone in class mentioned a KFC in every corner in China. We're robbing these people fo their culture and killing them at the same time. According to "Race Against Time: The Challenge of Cardiovascular Disease in Developing Countries"
Report
In lower and middle income countries, cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality is occurring at an alarmingly younger age, often during the most productive years of an individual's life, not only wrenching them away from their families, leaving widows in poverty, but also taking young people of out of the economy, thereby threatening its expansion.
Non-Communicable Diseases result in more deaths and account for more years of healthy life lost than communicable disease, yet there's little aid available for prevention efforts. Cardiovascular disease (CVD,including heart disease, diabetes, and obesity) is the cause of 30 percent of all deaths globally and 27 percent of deaths in low income countries, compared to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, which account to 10% of all global deaths and 11% of death, yet there is little aid going to prevent and treat CVD globally.
Johns Hopkins
Prevention and treatment programs for CVD are relatively low cost-per-life saved and disability prevented. The risk factors associated with CVD, including high fat diets, lack of exercise, smoking, and obesity are preventable and modifiable and there is no reason why the global health community should not emphasize prevention efforts on CVD in addition to infectious disease.
