TEHRAN -- “About 25 million of Iran’s 70 million population are overweight or obese,” former deputy health minister Ali-Akbar Sayari said here recently.

About 61 percent of the country’s urban population of over-twenties and 50 percent of the rural over-twenties are overweight or obese, he told the Mehr News Agency.
Currently, about 12 percent of the nation’s youngsters are overweight and 5 to 7 percent are obese, he noted.
Some 15 million people suffer from malnutrition, he added.
Blaming malnutrition on poverty, Sayari, who is also a pediatrician, stated that 32 million Iranians have more than adequate access to food in either quantity or nutritional quality.
Sayari also said 10 percent of the country’s over-fifteens suffer from high blood pressure, a condition linked to obesity. “And about 30 percent of over-forties have high blood pressure.”
Heart attacks cause tens of thousands of deaths annually in Iran, he stated, adding that people are having heart attacks at a younger age due to stress and bad nutritional habits.
Sayari also said that the obesity rate is rising in Iran and the rest of the world, adding that to save the country’s children, the couch potato-fast food culture should be abandoned.
Children must be taught healthy behavior when they are young because change becomes more difficult with age. Physical activity and proper nutrition are the cornerstones of preventing obesity in children and adolescents, and families and schools are the two most critical links in providing the foundation for those behaviors.
At a recent press conference, Iranian Nutrition Society Director Qolam-Reza Khatami said that whereas in the past malnutrition was a big problem in the country, now the fact that large numbers of schoolchildren are overweight or obese is a bigger problem.
To address the issue, a three-day conference entitled “Obesity: Our Infants, Children and Adolescents” will be held in Tehran from July 2 to 4, he added.
Iranian children have been getting heavier over the past few years, and experts believe the combination of a less active lifestyle and changes in eating patterns is responsible for the rise in obesity, Khatami stated.
To prevent obesity in children and adolescents, foods that are high in calories, fat, or sugar should be avoided, he advised.
A country in which over 35 percent of children are overweight is not a healthy country, he observed.
Pediatricians are now diagnosing overweight children with Type II diabetes, which used to be known as adult-onset diabetes, he said.
And studies show that childhood obesity greatly increases the likelihood of heart disease in adulthood, Khatami added.
Heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and osteoarthritis are all conditions linked to obesity.
It is estimated that each person whose death is directly linked to an obesity-related condition loses nine years of life and just being overweight shortens a person’s lifespan by about three years.
According to experts, to stop gaining weight, people need to either burn 100 calories more a day with physical activity or eat 100 calories less every day. They could cut back a little on portions, skip one soda or walk one extra mile a day, which would take about 15 to 20 minutes. This isn’t going to cause you to lose a lot of weight, but it’s going to keep you from gaining any more.
Obesity is measured using the Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a person’s weight in kilograms divided by their height in meters squared.
A BMI of 20 to 25 is normal, more than 25 is overweight, and more than 30 is defined as obese.
In light of all that has been said, a community-wide intervention should be launched to improve the diet and fitness of our children.
Part of the solution is to prevent people from becoming obese in the first place. Weight loss is difficult, but possible to attain. Its maintenance is harder but also possible. So let’s roll into action!
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