MANILA, Philippines – Used to following Western diet and lifestyle, Filipinos should be more careful about what they eat to prevent obesity, said Dr. David Heber, chairman of the Herbalife Nutrition Advisory Board and the Herbalife Nutrition Institute.
Heber said at an event at the Manila Hotel recently that bad eating habits has augmented the cases of increased abdominal fat and worsened biomarkers of metabolic syndrome in the Philippines.
“Body weight can be normal and you can still have excess body fat. Body fat in the abdominal area is associated with many problems even when people are ‘overfat’, but not obese by weight criteria,” he said.
Metabolic syndrome is a constellation of risk factors, including obesity, that together are predictors of cardiovascular disease.
Excess body fat damages your heart and directly influences important factors that increase your risk for heart attacks and stroke. Other diseases associated to obesity are diabetes, impotence and arthritis.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the Philippines and India are among the developing countries with high levels of obesity and under-nutrition. In fact, the National Nutrition Council said last July that three of ten Filipino adults are now obese.
Heber said obesity should be addressed before it becomes a regional epidemic.
Meanwhile, Heber also revealed that with the increasing cases of obesity in the county, nine in 10 Filipino consumers surveyed by the global nutrition company Herbalife are still “highly concerned” about the potential diseases that an unhealthy lifestyle can cause them.
According to the findings, a good number of the respondents expressed willingness to adopt a healthy lifestyle; 79 percent said that they would cut down on unhealthy foods, 78 percent expressed their willingness to exercise more regularly, and 72 percent said they would make better nutrition choices.
The endocrinology experts, who was recognized several times as one of the best doctors in America, strongly suggested a diet that incorporates meal replacements to improve weight loss and weight maintenance for the following reasons:
- Easierto plan meals
- Reduces barriers to dietary adherence
- Helps instill regular eating patterns
- May increase accuracy of calorie estimation of portion size
- Provides a simple guide for healthy nutrition
- Positively affects self-monitoring
- Facilitates making less deleterious food decision