HEALTH-SERBIA: The League of Obese Nations Beckons

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jul 25 2003 (IPS) - Serbia is turning into a fat nation, with obesity-related illnesses turning into a major health problem.

A study by the Serbian Bureau for the Protection of Health shows that 37 percent of adults are obese, together with 15 percent of children under the age of 14. The study considered a person obese if he or she carries 20 percent or more extra fat.

“Obesity is spreading like an epidemic, and it is becoming a major health problem,” Dr Dragan Micic, endocrinologist and coordinator of obesity experts at the health ministry told IPS. “Obesity is a growing problem around the world and Serbs are joining the club.”

More than half the population of some countries including neighbouring Greece, Bulgaria and Romania is obese, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Obesity is particularly high in the developed West.

Within Serbia the figure stands above 50 percent for some age groups. “Between 35 and 45, 52 percent of people are obese,” nutrition expert Dr Jagoda Jorga told IPS. “In the 45-55 age group the number of the obese jumps to 67 percent of the population, and between 55 and 65 it is an astonishing 79 percent.”

Given the national average of 37 percent, these figures would suggest markedly healthy weight figures among the young.

The prime problem in the older population seems to be inappropriate diet and lack of physical activity. “There’s no tradition of being involved in sports or training of any kind,” says nutrition expert Dr Ljubomir Pfaf.

“We take pride in our diet as ‘strong food’ or ‘Mum’s kitchen’,” he says. “A diet strong on pork, animal fat, fatty cheeses and home-made sweets takes its toll in early development of coronary diseases. Extra body fat is also a risk factor for diabetes. Both are killing people, but still most Serbs tend to say that only a fat child is a healthy child, as they did 100 years ago.”

An ‘Atlas of Malignant Diseases in Serbia’ that covers the 1990-2000 period says that of about 100,000 people who die every year in Serbia, 60 percent die of coronary diseases and 20 percent of cancer.

The ‘atlas’ says more than 65 million dollars a year is spent on treating cancer, and 200 million dollars a year on coronary diseases.

“Middle-aged people are often unaware that high blood pressure is the result of a wrong diet,” Dr Jorga says. “Besides considering it normal for their age, people over 45 and elders still regard as ‘normal’ many chronic diseases that can be directly linked to a wrong diet and obesity, such as diabetes and sclerosis of arteries.

A recent study of 100,000 people in the northern Serbian province Vojvodina, which has a high obese population, showed that 30 percent of men and 20 percent of women had high sugar levels, making them prone to diabetes.

Dozens of day care centres in Belgrade are now introducing healthy food to replace traditional diet. “It’s interesting for kids,” says Vesna Zecevic, a nutritionist at the downtown Belgrade centre Leptiric (Butterfly). “Still, children do not easily get used to food they don’t see at home.”

Summer camps for children include nutrition courses. Youngsters have been taught to prepare healthy meals from the ingredients their mothers or grandmothers use.

“That could mean bringing some change at home in the name of the future,” Dr Jorga says. “Otherwise, it would mean that children will end up like most parents – obese or diabetic.”