The Clinical Coordinator of the Tema General Hospital (TGH) says that desire for fast food is having impact on our eating habits which is in turn affecting our overall health status.
Dr. Augustine Quashie says there is the need to “remind ourselves of our natural home-made foods. We’re so used to eating imported food, package food, oily food, spicy food, all bottled and packaged, and the crave for fast food and ‘take-aways’ is taking over our eating
habits.”
He said this on Saturday during a health screening and food bazaar organized by the Tema General Hospital to sensitize the public on the need to lead a healthy lifestyle by eating well.
Dr. Quashie, who stood in for the Medical Director of the TGH, Dr. Kwabena Opoku-Edusie, observed that early deaths recorded in Ghana were as a result of unhealthy lifestyles, and therefore the campaign was to remind community members that Ghanaian natural foods were healthy and could keep us alive longer.
He added that, “The processes these natural food goes through in preparation is healthy for our body; the sugar content is released slowly into the body, the salt content is enough for the blood to absorb and therefore it’s not food which choke your system and give your system a lot of problems.”
He said, “Eating should be like medicine. Eat at regular time intervals; eat in the morning, eat in the afternoon, eat in the evening. Eat the right food, eat at the right time, and eat the local foods. Treat food as medicine and you’d lead a comfortable life.”
Acting Director of Heath of Tema Central Sub-Metro, Dr. Akosua Osei Manu, informed that Ghanaians were battling with diseases of lifestyle origins because of the kinds of food we ate.
She said, “We’re what we eat; we need to know how beneficial what we eat is to our bodies. Eating is about nourishing the body and not just taking in something. When we look at eating from this perspective, it’d really inform us and help us make decisions in term of what we eat.”
She observed that there were a lot of nutritious foods in Ghana and therefore Ghanaians could prepare many dishes out of them and would not need to resort to foreign products to feed.
He advised against using artificial spices by saying that, “We don’t need all these artificial additives; there are natural spices that give us the same flavour and taste we seek.”
She asked the public to exercise and have enough rest and not just make money and get a name for themselves adding that “If you have money and you don’t have good health, what’s the point? Let’s have a very balanced life and look at life from all perspectives,” she said.
The exercise, which took place at the Prisco Park in the Horticulture Electoral Area, Community Four, Tema, had about 100 community members participating with women groups from a cross-section of religious organizations in Tema displaying some Ghanaian dishes and outlining the processes in preparing them.
The exercise, which was assisted by the Assembly man for the Horticulture Electoral Area, Mr. Richard Anning, was also used to screen mostly the elderly for conditions like HIV/AIDS, blood sugar levels, blood pressure, Body Marks Index(BMI), eye and dental screenings.
Source: GNA
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