Delhi and Ahmedabad top the ICMR’s study of people consuming fats above prescribed levels
That Indian cuisine is high on flavour is an undisputed fact but so is the reality that it is making us sick. Not because there’s anything wrong with our food but because our eating habits are askew and we are over-dependent on coating our food with fat. We think nothing of adding more butter to our food and eating deep fried snacks, biryani, paranthas and so on, especially in the metropolitan cities where there’s a culture of indulgence, easy availability of rich foods, even late at night thanks to food apps and an increasing capacity to pay for foods that we crave for. It’s no surprise then that a recent survey by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on consumption patterns in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai shows that the average intake of added fat in all the seven metro cities pooled together was 32.6 grams per person each day, which is higher than the ICMR-recommended levels of 20 grams. Out of these seven cities, Delhi and Ahmedabad topped the list in the daily average consumption of fat. Overall, 18 per cent of the total intake of energy was obtained from visible fat and vegetarians consumed more fat at 40.7 grams per person daily than non-vegetarians at 30.2 grams. The survey also revealed that men consume more fat at 34.1 grams than women who consume 31.1 grams per day. These figures are worrying as the country’s burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is escalating at an alarming rate.
While NCDs typically affect people above 55 in most developed nations, in India, they occur at least 10 years earlier. Not only are they eroding our human capital, an increasing healthcare burden is one of the major public health challenges the country is facing. And as Government spending on health is a dismal 1.2 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), this means that the burden of rising lifestyle diseases like cancer, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular complexities is increasingly being borne by individuals out of their pockets. Ludicrously, India is fighting the twin burden of undernutrition and overnutrition, which leaves the Government and healthcare professionals with the dilemma of solving both issues concurrently. Also, it is ironic that both Delhi and Ahmedabad top the list of unhealthy eaters, considering the fact that in Delhi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been improving healthcare facilities and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hails from Gujarat, has been an avid proponent of the Fit India Movement. Maybe, it’s time Governments began looking at creating more awareness as part of their efforts to keep India healthy.