Dubai: With child obesity reaching alarming proportions in the UAE — nearly 40 per cent of children in the UAE are either obese or overweight — the Ministry of Health has intensified its efforts to tackle the problem by announcing the launch of their latest health initiative called ‘Healthy Restaurant’ in April.
As part of the national campaign ‘Healthy Children 2021’ that aims to reduce obesity levels among children to 12 per cent by 2021, the ministry announced that there will be a number of health awareness activities that will target schoolchildren and parents across the UAE until 2021.
One of the upcoming initiatives, said Dr Fadila Mohammad Sharif, the ministry’s Director of Health Education and Promotion, is to encourage restaurants to devise wholly new healthy meal options for children and appetisers for adults.
“The Healthy Restaurant initiative is part of our continuous efforts to deal with the challenge of obesity and encourage healthy eating habits among children. Restaurants interested in joining this programme will have their menus reviewed by us and will have to create a completely healthy kids menu,” said Dr Fadila.
However, she clarified that it will not be mandatory for all restaurants to change their menus, but only those who partner with them to fight obesity in the UAE.
“There will be nutrition specialists from the Ministry of Health supervising and following up with the healthy menus and calculating the calories of each meal. The restaurants will have to include at least three healthy starters and three healthy main courses as part of their menus,” she said.
With the first phase of the national campaign which ends in mid-April — which saw different health activities being organised across the country since January such as the ‘Let’s Walk’ activity that took place on March 23 in Al Majaz Park in Sharjah — a number of other initiatives and programmes are being considered, said Dr Fadila.
“We are working on putting an end to public space ads that promote unhealthy food for children. These ads influence [children’s] eating habits greatly, so we are looking at different ways to stop having such ads on the roads by possibly passing a legislation.”
The national campaign, organised as part of the National Programme for Government Communication (NPGC) and spearheaded by the Ministry of Health, has also been disseminating health information in different locations across the country, organising health workshops at schools and holding other activities, such as group walking and running that help in creating a heathier lifestyle.
Dr Hussain Al Rand, Assistant Undersecretary for Health Centres and Clinics and Chairperson of the ‘Healthy Children 2021’ task force mandated to steer the campaign, said: “The programme seeks to implement a nation-wide action plan, with a set time-frame and evaluation indicators, to encourage individuals and families to adopt a healthy lifestyle and deal with the challenge of obesity, which has become one of the serious diseases in developed societies.”
Upcoming events of the national campaign are being posted on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube on ‘ngcp2021’.
Residents can also visit the following websites: www.healthychildren2021.ae and www.npgc2021.ae
