The World Health Organisation on Wednesday launched strategies aimed
at getting Europeans to start moving and stop smoking over the next
decade to defuse what it termed the ticking time-bomb of sedentary
lifestyles.
"Health systems across the region (Europe) risk being
crippled by people suffering the effects of physical inactivity and
sedentary behaviour," Doctor Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for
Europe, said in a Wednesday statement issued at talks in the Lithuanian
capital Vilnius.
"To address this, we have developed the first physical activity strategy for the WHO European Region 2016-2025."
"Rates
of overweight and obesity are rising dramatically" in 46 of the 53
countries in its European region, the WHO noted in the same statement.
"More
than 50 percent of adults are overweight or obese; in several of those
countries, the rate in the adult population is close to 70 percent," the
statement added.
"In some countries, more than 40 percent of 7-
and 8-year-old boys are overweight, and more than 20 percent are obese,"
it warned.
As part of the new strategy, the WHO's 53 European
member have agreed to ensure their populations have equal and safe
access to areas and infrastructure designed for exercise regardless of
"gender, age, income, education, ethnicity or disability."
Ministers
of health from the WHO's 53 European members on Wednesday also signed
up to an unprecedented roadmap to make "tobacco a thing of the past"
over the next decade by enforcing a series of anti-tobacco measures.
They
include enforcing smoking bans, especially in children's environments,
effectively banning tobacco advertising, curbing tobacco product
placement in entertainment and "increasing public awareness through
educational initiatives to prevent young people from starting to smoke."
"The
generation growing up now cannot comprehend that people used to smoke
on airplanes, buses, in restaurants or in offices," Jakab said, pointing
to the progress made over the last 20 years in enforcing tobacco
controls but insisted there was "hard work ahead."
"Governments
must fully implement the measures in the WHO Framework Convention on
Tobacco Control and define a common goal: a Europe where tobacco is not a
social norm," she said.
The WHO also singled out countries that
have announced a target year to end tobacco use in their populations:
Ireland by 2025, Scotland by 2034, Finland by 2040.
"They are
paving the way to a tobacco-free future by introducing plain packaging,
banning smoking in cars carrying children and aiming for a tobacco-free
millennial generation," it said.
- AFP
Stop smoking: Making tobacco a thing of the past
4/
5
Oleh
healthandwealth
