School health programme could prevent obesity, says gastroenterologist
City hospital hosts annual conference on obesity
Schools must have a health education programme to teach children to maintain ideal weight, said C. Palanivelu, chairman of GEM Hospital.
Dr. Palanivelu was speaking at the seventh edition of Obesicon held in the city on Sunday. “Until 20 years ago I did not think obesity was a problem in India,” he said adding that he thought it was a problem only in western countries, an opinion he revised after a survey of school children in Coimbatore.
He referred to the inclusion of tooth powder in the breakfast scheme introduced by former Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran in 1982 and said, “At a camp in a Poonamallee school I found 95% of the students had dental caries,” and realised the importance of the inclusion.
On the sidelines of the conference, he told media persons that a study among school children in Coimbatore after a suggestion by doctors at his hospital revealed that 30% were overweight and 12% among them were obese. “Our doctors can raise awareness among people about obesity. We need proper guidelines about when and how to declare a person obese and needs bariatric surgery,” he said.
Praveen Raj, head of the Department of Obesity and Metabolic Surgery, said over 200 delegates, including doctors and dieticians participated in the conference that discussed the use of artificial intelligence in surgery. The theme of the conference was “Conquering mount obesity’. The conference’s objective was to discuss and implement multimodal management approach to obesity. Dr. Raj said the hospital used AI tools to assess the nutrition status of the food patients consume and provide them feedback to enable them to maintain healthy lifestyle.
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