Check your eyes and your weight

School kids are taught to brush their teeth after every meal and visit the dentist twice a year. Yet nine of every ten of them have tooth problems. That’s because there’s only one dentist for every 22,261 public elementary and high school students, and the state’s dental budget for each of them is only 50¢ a year.

Another irony is that schoolchildren are never taught about eye care. Yet, ask any of them which of the five senses they would retain if needed to give up four, and they invariably would say sight. There’s no classroom poster or limerick to remind them to see an eye doctor. Most schools do not have vision screening for incoming Grade 1 pupils. Students are adjudged to be slow learners when their real problem is simply not seeing clearly the arithmetic flash cards or blackboard jottings because of neglected eyesight.

The malady is highlighted all the more by recent findings that Asians are more prone to eye disease than other races. It could be due to heredity, diet or plain ignorance of eye care, but 70 percent of Asians have eye defect.

The four most common conditions are myopia (nearsightedness), hyperopia (farsightedness), presbyopia (aging eyes), and astigmatism (distorted vision). Eyeglasses, contact lenses, or bifocals can easily correct all. But early detection is critical, says ophthalmologist Jose Melvin Jimenez of the St. Luke’s Medical Center. Otherwise the weaker could become a lazy eye due to slower muscle development.

Health officials estimate that one of every 20 Filipinos are blind in one or both eyes. Jimenez’s associate Dr. Irwin Cua lists four common causes: cataract, retinal disease, glaucoma, and corneal infection. The latter two can be hereditary. All four also spring from diabetes and its offshoots, like hypertension. Half of male deaths in American can be traced to sneaky diabetes, and health workers believe the prevalence could be the same in the Philippines.

Since Filipinos know so little about eye care, they see an eye doctor only when they can hardly see. Patients do not think they have sight problems until their vision is almost gone, Cua laments. Yet prevention is always better than having to cure. He cautions the near- and farsighted against contact sports that could lead to serious – even blinding – eye injury. Protective lenses are a must when the sun is high or doing simple house chores like nailing a picture frame on the wall. Most of all, visit an eye doctor just to make sure everything’s okay.

Oh, but there’s another malady there. There are only 800 ophthalmologists nationwide.

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Another topic schoolchildren are never taught early is to watch their weight. Again the statistics are scary. In 2000 20.6 percent of Filipinos were overweight and 8.1 percent were obese; by 2003 their volume grew to 31.3 percent and 10.1 percent, respectively. Women outnumber men three-to-one. Mothers especially are prone to overweight because they think they have to eat their children’s leftovers.

Experts are still gathering fresher figures. But Dr. Luisito Llido of St. Luke’s Weight Management Center says he wouldn’t be surprised if the combined number has reached 45 percent, or almost half the population. More worrisome is that most of the new additions to the overweight and obese side are children. The danger is that overweight and obesity bring about that sneaky and lethal diabetes.

Body-mass indexing is the simplest determinant of overweight or obesity. Divide your height in millimeters by your weight in kilograms. A quotient of 18.5 to 25 means you’re normal; up to 30 is overweight; up to 35 is Class-1 obesity; up to 40 is Class-2 obesity; over 40 is morbid obesity. As the adjective denotes, the last class brings you closer to the grave since you are a hundred pounds over your normal limit.

Surgeon Reynaldo Sinamban traces obesity to many factors. Children with obese parents are predisposed to be the same, because of the eating habits or diets they mimic. In some societies, obesity is a status symbol of wealth. Kids today have less exercise but more couching before TV sets and computers (why go out and fly a kite when "virtual" would do?). The most basic cause is overeating. Sinamban explains the easy equation: the food you eat must approximate the calories you burn. Excess food and less energy use equals overweight. Deadly obesity is the next step.

For the morbidly obese, bariatric surgery would be necessary. The stomach either is bypassed or clamped with silicon belt to only an eighth of the normal size. Once food fills up that smaller pouch, signals are sent to the brain that the patient is sated, so the appetite vanishes.

Non-surgical methods require strict dieting. Plus, Llido says, the doctor must trace the cause of overeating, anxiety perhaps, and cure it too.

But again prevention is the key. Sinamban offers some tips to avoid overeating. On seeing the buffet table at a banquet, drink a glass or two of water to signal the brain that you’re already half full; then take only a few bits with a lot of self-discipline. Eat lots of vegetables and fruits for the fibers that help in full digestion. Avoid frequent snacks, sweets, sodas, and junk food. A cup of rice, tennis ball size, with each meal is enough for most Filipinos. Chew slowly – up to three times more if need be – to tire your jaw and thus lose appetite. Most of all, work out; 30-minute brisk walks thrice a week can do wonders.

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