The Director General of the Michael Imuodu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS), Comrade Issa Aremu has said that he plans to revive sporting activities at the institution, as a way of promoting good state of health of members of staff of the institute.
Comrade Aremu stated this after this month’s keep fit exercise for members of staff of MINILS, as well as the launching of a table tennis set, at the premises of the institute.
The walk race and the flexibility exercise was supervised by Pharmacist Lanre Alege of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital and Oba Ishaq Olayinka, after which the Director General launched the table tennis board, promising to also fix all the dilapidated sporting facilities at the institute, and encourage participation in sports.
Pharmacist Alege, who is a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), delivered a lecture on body weight and obesity, clarifying that the World Health Organization (WHO) regards obesity as a major health problem, and recognizes it as a disease in its own right.
“Many people hardly border about their body weight, and a few can tell their usual body weight or whether their weights are within normal limits. Many heavy people do not know whether they are overweight or obese. The international standard for measuring overweight and obesity is based on the value of the Body Mass Index (BMI)”, he said.
He highlights the causes of overweight and obesity to include how much one eats and the kind of food, one’s lifestyle, and whether it includes regular physical activities, one’s generic make-up, whether one uses food in response to stress, and one’s age and health status.
According to him, “Overweight and obesity are largely preventable, and anybody must make efforts to avoid acquiring the extra and unnecessary weight. If one has acquired it, one should spare no effort to shed it”, he clarified.
Some of the health consequences of body overweight and obesity are high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, high blood cholesterol and breast colon, among others.
Among his recommendations were determining the Body Mass Index and weight conference, and if overweight, to take steps to reduce it, start to check overweight from childhood, those with generic disposition to gain weight should try to control it, to lose weight gradually over weeks, and trim fat from diet, and cut overall fat intake by eating lean meat, fish, skinned poultry, and low fat dairy products, and avoid sweets.