Dubai: People are not eating enough fruit and vegetables and have turned into couch potatoes, which is killing more people by heart attacks, a state of the nation health report warns.
A senior Health Ministry official said what was worrying is that children here are spending more time watching TV or playing computer games than the world average.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that individuals should watch TV for only two hours daily. Young adults here spend more than three hours daily on such entertainment, the official said.
More people will become obese as a result and nearly half the population could be overweight within three years, it warns.
Free from malaria
The report has some good news. Fewer babies are dying and the rate of infant mortality is continuing to drop, it said.
The other positive is that polio has been eradicated and the country is malaria-free due to its stringent controls, early screenings and surveillance programmes of those arriving here from infected areas.
The worrying trend is that more young adults and school children are becoming smokers. The government has taken stringent steps to curb smoking, including making it a criminal offence if you smoke in a car with a child. But experts say more needs to be done such as making it more expensive to smoke.
Work stress seems to be big here in the UAE and the report notes that more people will face the dangers of cardiovascular and high blood pressure diseases.
But diabetes still remains a significant cause of death in the country. About 20 per cent of the population or 1.6 million residents are expected to be afflicted by this condition by 2030.
The report highlights the fact that cardiovascular diseases were the main cause of death (26 per cent), followed by traffic accidents (17.4 per cent), cancer (9.86 per cent) and congenital anomalies (6.33 per cent) in 2010.
