The health system in Nigeria since the nation gained her Independence from the Colonia Masters is questionable and full of challenges as successive administration has continued to proffer solution to overcome these challenges but all to no avail as the services in the health sector are depreciating daily and the citizenry are at the receiving end of the decay in the system.
Our leaders who have been occupying leadership position since Independence has not helped matters as they embarked on medical tourism to foreign countries to take care of their health and that of their families but the common masses are left to die due to the poor state of our health system which they have failed to fix over the years.
Nigerians wouldn’t have been dying daily from common illness that is curable if the health system was in a better shape. It is painful to hear Nigerians die from illness like cold, fever, headache, typhoid, obesity and the likes.
Talking about obesity, it has become a common phenomenal in Nigeria as statistics from investigation show that Obesity is a major health problem, and there is an increasing trend of overweight and obese individuals in Nigeria. Being overweight or obese is known to contribute significantly to morbidity and mortality rates in various countries around the world.
Various organizations, research Institutions and even health organizations have spend millions and billions of naira or dollars to enable them provide solution to the seemingly problem threatening the existence of human on earth.
Overweight and obesity, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as body-mass index ≥ 25 kg/m2 and ≥30 kg/m2, respectively, are associated with several diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and several types of cancer. In 2008, 1.4 billion adults aged 20 years and above were overweight or obese, of whom approximately 200 million men and 300 million women were estimated to be obese.
WHO had projected that by 2030, there will be 2.16 billion overweight and 1.12 billion obese individuals globally, result from trend analysis suggest that 2 or more billion people worldwide are currently overweight or obese.
Although more people in developing countries now die from obesity-associated diseases, including ischemic heart disease, diabetes mellitus and cancer, many people are still under the impression that overweight and obesity affects only the Western world and that lower resource countries continue to struggle with only underweight, malnutrition and infections. This may not be the case because the obesity epidemic is growing faster in developing countries than in the developed world.
Investigation shows that Edmark Nigeria appeared to be one organization that have stepped in to fill the gap and proffer solution to the challenges facing obesity as they have helped over 1,200 individuals lose 10,600 kilogramms of their excess weight within 90 days which they turned into a completion to encourage all obesity people around the state and by extension the country to key into programme to loss their weight and win prices in return.
To create awareness about obesity in the state, the organization organized a one day seminar in the state to enlighten the people and equip them with relevant information to empower the Nigerian Youths to overcome obesity and the challenges associated with it as it affects both children and adult alike.
According to the organizer of the seminar, the organization focus on enlightening the people showing them the way to reclaim and maintain their health, which will certainly be a path towards financial freedom and a means to better their lives.
Delivery a lecture on Membership Drive Reality (MDR), the senior crown manager of Edmark Mrs. Kally Arimotu said a lot of Nigerians are born with great potentials but the country has failed to create the opportunities needed for the citizenry to excel. She said a lots Nigerians have dreams but there is no fertile ground to sow the seed for it to germinate into reality.
She added that lots of Nigerian youths need financial freedom and the three ingredients needed to achieve it include money, time and good health.”These ingredients are missing in the lives of many Nigerians and responsible for our failure in life.
Arimotu attributed success and wealth to the ability of individuals to manage their time well as many trade their time for money instead of money for time. She said people trade money for time just to make ends meet to enable them met up with the challenges in their families but still they continue to remain poor.
She exposed the participant to the four quadrants of life which include ‘Employees; Self Employed; Business Owners and Investors. She said 95 per cent of the Nigerian Economy is made up of people in the first quadrant (Employees), they work for other people and don’t have time freedom , cant determined their financial freedom or promotion saying those that are rich and will continue to get richer because their money works for them are those in the quadrant of investors.
Crown Manager Auseline Ogbuagu said Obesity comes along with different health challenges, as such call on participants to utilize the opportunity before them to inspire and motivate themselves to ensure they lose weight to win in the space of 90 days (three months).
“Obesity has killed a lot of people as people in this dispensation don’t care what they eat as they are prepared to eat just anything, in the process eating junk foods which go a long way to complicate their health challenges through Obesity. People eat food that has no nutritional value to their health not recognizing the fact that obesity is a life threatening problems all over the world as a lot have lost their lives to obesity” she concluded.
Another Crown manager of Edmark Efekoha Patricia who spoke with journalist said Obesity is a killer disease and has no respect for any one, as people die from it but death is now a thing of the past as obesity can now be checked with good supplement that one will enjoy drinking rather than taking drugs to put it under check.
The event saw participant engaging themselves in dance energizer to keep them awake, fit, relax and excited, putting smiles on their faces ensuring that the event never had a dull moment.
The high point of the event was the 90 days challenge, a competition involving overweight people engaging themselves with various activities to lose reasonable amount of their weight up to 21kg or less to emerge winner of the contest or wins other prices.
At the end of a well contested challenge, Esther Oduware lost more weight amongst all other contestants as she lost 21kg weight from her original weight of 75kg before the competition and attain a 100 per cent weight loss making her ambassador of the organization. The second position went to Aruna Victoria who had a total weight loss of 90.9 per cent while Patience Ekezie came third with a total weigh loss of 52.9 per cent. The contestant went home with mouth watering prices as well as consolation prices to other contestants.
Esther Oduware express delight for her victory in the lose to win 90 days challenges which enable her lose some weight and win at the end of the competition. She said such gesture will encourage obese people in the country to lose their excess weight and get rewarded at the end of the day saying the development is healthier for Nigeria as a country battling with obesity.
