‘Healthy individuals, prosperous society’

Khyber Medical University Vice Chancellor Dr Arshad Javaid says adequate nutrition is critical for a healthy life

PESHAWAR: Khyber Medical University Vice Chancellor Dr Arshad Javaid has said, that adequate nutrition is critical for a healthy life, for only with healthy individuals can we build a prosperous society. Unfortunately, the nutrition situation of our country reveals that we still have a long way to go to achieve adequate nutrition intake ensuring better health for all.

The maternal and child malnutrition statistics show poor nutrition situation in the country, this brings us to the need for a thorough review of our nutrition policy. Dr Javaid was speaking as chief guest at the concluding ceremony of three days workshop on Nutritional Epidemiology organised by KMU-ORIC.

He raised some pertinent questions such as “Is our policy based on some solid scientific evidence? Do we know the major determinants of the various nutritional problems? Do we know what interventions work in our setting and which one works best? And most importantly, can we rely on the statistics out there”? He said, while answering these questions require a strong research base to generate evidence in these key areas. I believe this should be a priority. This is especially important as we know that as a country grappled with economic worries, we are about to witness another “slow motion disaster”, the burden of obesity and non-communicable diseases.

He elaborated that with the complexity of double burden of malnutrition and obesity as well as non-communicable diseases, it is important that we strengthen our nutrition research in local context to understand the extent and determinants of nutritional problems.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2019.