Over-nutrition contributing to diabetes, hypertension in Nigeria –Health minister

The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Mohammed Ali Pate, has warned that under-nutrition and over-nutrition are putting the lives of Nigerian children and adults at risk, hence the need for concerted efforts to tackle the menace.

He made the call while speaking at the inauguration of the National Legislative Network on Nutrition and Food Security organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Nutrition and Food Security on Monday.

He lamented that the country had struggled with acute malnutrition and there was a need to deal with it and the issue of over- and undernutrition.

He said, “Food security and nutrition as we know are key pillars of Mr President’s Renewed Hope Agenda for Nigeria. And this is a long standing issue. For many years we struggled with stunting, we struggled with maternal malnutrition, acute malnutrition, household food insecurity but also the other side of under-nutrition.

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“The under-nutrition is what we pay most attention to. It is acute and we need to deal with it. But, in reality, we have a triple burden of malnutrition in Nigeria. We have the under nutrition, acute hunger, malnutrition but we also have the over-nutrition which is contributing to the fast rate of growth of non-communicable diseases in Nigeria.

“For the adults, hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery diseases are growing partly because of the food we eat; the processed food that we eat. And it’s important to know that under-nutrition also puts you at risk for getting over nutrition, because when you grow up and the cells are few, you grow horizontally. Non-communicable diseases are attributed to malnutrition of a different kind.

“Add micro-nutrients deficiency as the third nutrition deficiency that we are facing. So, in relation to this subject, it is not just the Kaloric deficiency but the diversity of the diet that we have. If you go to my village, we mostly eat Carbohydrates, few leaves and all of those.

“But, the diversity in terms of Lipid and Protein are also important to address these gaps including the micro-nutrients deficiency alongside water and sanitation, breast-feeding, infant and young child feeding. These are all important determinants for what we are seeing both in under-nutrition and over-nutrition”.

The Minister therefore called for a stronger stakeholders collaboration to help the federal government fight the various challenges facing Nigerians especially in the healthcare sector.