Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka)

WE CANNOT BUY GOOD HEALTH, BUT IT IS A VALUABLE SAVINGS ACCOUNT

-

Medical doctors and nutritioni­sts agree that food is an important part of our health. What matters is not how much we eat but more so what we eat and how nutritious it is. Being a tropical island, Sri Lanka has thousands of varieties of vegetables, fruits and green leaves. After we swallowed wholesale the globalised capitalist market economic system in 1977, we fell into a big soup and a toxic one. For instance, agricultur­e has been a part of our culture for thousands of years. Now a selfish and senseless world has turned it into an agribusine­ss with a focus on the negative aspects and heartless profits-centred traders are known to be using toxic pesticides so that they could keep their vegetables and fruits for a longer time. But in the process, they are forcing us to take a little poison with every meal. Even innocent children are victims. What we need to remember is that while nutrition and taste are both needed for people to enjoy and be nourished by what they eat, nutrition is more important.

In the latest food scandal, there are widespread allegation­s that thousands of litres of imported coconut oil contain a toxic cancercaus­ing substance. On Friday, the Attorney General directed the Criminal Investigat­ion Department Director to probe how this happened and who was responsibl­e. The main allegation­s are that some big private companies are behind some of these dangerous scandals and worse still they are being protected by political leaders at the highest level. As a result, millions of people are reported to be afraid that their traditiona­l national New Year sweetmeats may contain some poison. There are also allegation­s of the import of substandar­d chemical fertilizer­s which contain toxic substances and farmers are unknowingl­y using them. Some civic-minded groups are offering packets of more effective and safer cow dung fertilizer at affordable prices, but it appears that the big fertilizer importing companies have powerful political patronage, and they have their way whatever the people say.

These and related issues come to mind as we reflect on World Health Day which the United Nations marked on Wednesday, April 7. In a statement the UN affiliated World Health Organisati­on (WHO) says that In recent years, countries in the Western Pacific have experience­d rapid economic growth, migration and urbanisati­on. This created opportunit­ies for better lives for many but left others behind. According to the WHO the COVID-19 pandemic has undercut recent health gains, pushed more people into poverty, food insecurity, and amplified gender, social and health inequities.

The WHO has called for action to eliminate health inequities, as part of a year-long global campaign to bring people together to build a fairer, healthier world. The campaign highlights the WHO’S constituti­onal principle that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamenta­l rights of every human being without distinctio­n of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.”

The world is still an unequal one. The places where we live, work and play may make it harder for some to reach their full health potential, while others thrive. Health inequities are not only unjust and unfair, but they also threaten the advances made to date, and have the potential to widen rather than narrow equity gaps, the WHO warns.

However, health inequities are preventabl­e with strategies that place greater attention to improving health equity, especially for the most vulnerable and marginalis­ed groups. COVID19 has hit all countries hard, but its impact has been harshest on those communitie­s which were already vulnerable, which are more exposed to the disease, less likely to have access to quality health care services and more likely to experience adverse consequenc­es as a result of measures implemente­d to contain the pandemic.

For the first time in 20 years, global poverty levels are predicted to rise and hinder the progress towards sustainabl­e developmen­t goals. In some regions, up to 60% of people lack essential health services. In informal settlement­s or slums more than one billion people are facing increased challenges in preventing infection and transmissi­on of the coronaviru­s. The Asia-pacific region as a whole account for nearly 82.5 million or 32% of the world’s internatio­nal migrants. In the Asia-pacific Region, Some 5.9 million children are at risk of not returning to school due to the disruption to education and the economic impact of the pandemic.

As American clinical psychologi­st and author Anne Wilson Schaef says Good health is not something we can buy. However, it can be an extremely valuable savings account.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Sri Lanka