By By our correspondent
This was stated by a group of renowned doctors from across the city during the seminar on “Obesity Management and Control”, organised by the Mir Khalilur Rahman Memorial Society (MKRMS) held in collaboration with the Contours Obesity Management Centre at a local hotel here on Sunday.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Saeed Qureshi said there were 300 million obese people in the world. He said first of all moderate eating could control obesity, then regular exercise, then medicines and finally – and the most unwanted way – to treat obesity was surgery.
He said that one of the most advanced treatments of obesity was stomach binding in which an adjustable band was draped around the upper part of stomach to make a sub-stomach. When one would eat, one would feel that the sub-stomach was filled with food and one would not want to eat more and ultimately there would be little intake of food. He said the treatment was first introduced in the country by the Contours Obesity Management Centre in November 2007 when the first operation was carried out. He said since then, the centre had carried out 70 successful stomach binding operations, adding that in the treatment, the stomach was not cut out but only banded and it had no side effects and even the band could be removed once the objectives were achieved.
Angela, an American citizen living in Pakistan and a person who underwent the said surgery, also spoke on the occasion and said that she had lost 73 kg of weight since January 2009 when she got operated upon and had a band in her stomach.
She said she had two options in the summer of 2008 when her weight went up to 340 pounds – to go for gastric bypass or stomach banding and she chose the latter.
She said her life was totally changed after the operation and added that she could not lose weight without stomach banding even if she had tried for 20 long years. Dr Javed Akram, Principal Allama Iqbal Medical College, said obesity was affecting everyone, especially the children. He said Apple Obesity (in which tummy inflates) could affect the liver as well. He said according to new standards, any male having a waist more than 36 inches and female having more than 34.5 inches of waist were considered obese. He said there were 60pc children and 45pc teenagers obese in Pakistan. He said obesity could cause sleeplessness and the best treatment of obesity was to improve lifestyle, quality of food and exercise.
Dr Javed said the government should take proper measures in order to control obesity by promoting physical activities and giving people chances of entertainment. He said the Main Boulevard was the most costly road of the city when it was constructed but unfortunately, it had no footpath. He said decreasing one’s diet was the best solution to control obesity and exercise alone could do nothing. He said that for morbid obese people (who can hardly walk), surgery was the ultimate solution.
Dr Shaheena Asif, a gynecologist, said girls should especially be taken care of in a family where obesity was inherited because it could affect their matrimonial affairs besides everyday life.
She said Policistic Ovarian Syndrome was on the rise because of reckless and substandard intake of food and which could cause obesity. She said in this disease, females start producing more male like hormones and they could grow hair on their face. She said due to lack of entertainment facilities and the current law and order situation in the country, depression was on the rise. She said breast cancer and the uterus cancer were also sometimes due to obesity.
Dr Nasrullah Rana said obesity could cause snoring, which sometimes led to separation between couples, adding that snoring was curable with an operation.
Dr Shehla Javed Akram, a dietician, said that there should be a balanced intake of diet throughout the day. She said fibers must be in the diet and one should keep on shuffling one’s diet as far as portions of proteins, carbohydrates and fibers were considered.
Dr Asad Ashraf, MPA, said health issues were major priorities in the Punjab government’s agenda and the Punjab chief minister wanted every citizen of the province to avail equal and good opportunities of health facilities. He said the Mobile Health Vans Programme would start within a few days in which mobile vans would go door-to-door in the far-flung areas of the province to provide health facilities like MRI and CT scan to villagers and the poor. He said the government would announce a new Health Care Commission by the end of the current month whose main aim would be monitoring and evaluating the ongoing projects.
Suhail Zia Butt, MPA, said that all the factories manufacturing milk in the country should be properly checked because they were providing poison in the form of milk to citizens and the worst affected were the children. He stressed the need to make the quality of edible oil in the country better.
Aziz Awan, Secretary General of the Tameer-e-Pakistan Party, said the biggest reason of obesity was lack of awareness among the people. He said the treatment of banding the stomach was matchless and more seminars like this on health issues should be arranged.
Ayesha Khan, a dietician, said prevention was always better than cure and people should be abstemious in eating.
Dr Iftikhar Ahmed said liposuction was no doubt a treatment but it had its side effects as well. He said after liposuction, the skin could get deformed and the patient needed another surgery afterwards. Dr Azmat K Majid said obesity was basically the disorder of our bio-chemistry.