By: Juliette Siegfried
India has the largest number of people with diabetes in the
world. According to the International Diabetes Federation, the number of
diabetics rose from its already high 1995 rate of 19 million to over 62 million
in 2011. An estimated 11% to 20% of India's urban population has diabetes, and
3% to 5% of the adult rural population has the disease. Estimates from the
World Health Organization say that the disease currently costs India about $250
billion per year, and that in the next ten years this figure will skyrocket to
$335 billion.
Clearly, India has a diabetes problem. But the real issue is
that it's a predictor of a growing global problem. According to the
International Journal of Diabetes in Developing Countries, the alarming increase
in diabetes "has gone beyond epidemic form to a pandemic one."
India is just the "canary in the coal mine,"
warning miners of dangers they cannot see. The rise of diabetes in India is
being seen by health experts as a precursor of what we can expect to see happen
all over the world in coming years.
What are the causes of this diabetes pandemic?
Because most of the newly-diagnosed cases in India are of
Type 2 diabetes (formerly called non-insulin-diabetes), the root causes there
are the same as they are in America – poor diet overloaded with fat, sugar, and
calories, obesity, stress, and a sedentary lifestyle, in which people don't get
enough exercise. These causal factors are amplified in India by genetics (in
which many people seem to be prone to the disease because their parents and
grandparents were) and cultural factors (what is considered "fat" in
America is considered normal in India, and what America considers a normal
weight is considered in India "too skinny").
It has also been triggered by the large-scale importation of
a Western lifestyle. Everywhere you go in India, you see roadside stands and
carts selling sweets and samosas and pakoras deep-fried in "bad
fats." These vendors compete with fast-food franchises selling
Western-style hamburgers and french fries. At the same time, people can now
afford to travel via scooter or buses, and thus don't walk as much as they did
a few years ago. When they get to work, they often sit at a desk talking on the
telephone or working at a computer all day, and then when they get home, they
sit in front of the television or play video games. It's a lifestyle that is
pretty much a blueprint for developing Type 2 diabetes.
Diseases once prevalent only among the wealthy now affect the
poor
The result of all of this is that the diseases related to
diabetes – hypertension, kidney failure, retinal damage, and ulcers – have also
skyrocketed. And it's all because India's base standard of living has improved.
People who were considered poor a few years ago had a diet driven by necessity,
but which was relatively healthy – beans, rice, and vegetables. Now most people
can afford the fast foods and processed foods, and their diets have become the
same as those in the upper middle class, containing far too much sugar, fats,
and "empty calories."
Caroline Fall, a British professor of epidemiology, suggests
that India reflects trends that we're seeing in developing countries all over
the world: "The biggest recipe for chronic disease is to have a very poor
start in life and then to be in a situation where you’re rapidly transitioning
towards excess nutrition and inadequate activity." The more fast and
processed foods that people in these nations moving to a more Western lifestyle
eat, the less actual nutrition they get. And the young are most at risk. In the
West, the onset of Type 2 diabetes is most commonly seen in adults in their 40s
and 50s. In India, it's affecting people in their early to mid 20s.
What can be done about this?
The answer to this question is as frustrating in India and in
other developing nations as it is in America. Education programs sponsored by governments
to teach people about what a healthy diet is and what an unhealthy diet is can
help, as can government- and school-sponsored exercise programs. But that
doesn't counter the ever-increasing availability of cheap but nutritionally
empty fast foods and over-processed foods. As long as these foods remain easier
to obtain and prepare than healthier home-cooked foods, people are going to
continue to eat them. And educators are facing an uphill battle, because among
the people they're trying to educate, eating healthier diets that they cook
themselves and sitting in front of their computers and TVs less are seen as
failure – "going back" to a previous, less prosperous, and less
Western era. Sadly, their desire to become more Western may be killing them.
No comments:
Post a Comment