July 19, 2005

Health-wise, economic development has come to Asia as a double-edged sword. While economic prosperity and city-living have provided better educational and employment opportunities, these trends have also tended to displace features of  traditional lifestyle that health professionals now realise were actually rather beneficial to health, for example regular physical activity  and diets based on less energy-dense foods. One of the consequences of this is escalating rates of overweight and obesity which are in turn resulting in rising rates of illness such as Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. Scientific research has identified many factors that can contribute to the accumulation of excess body fat but currently there is no clear consensus on how important each of these is in influencing global overweight/obesity trends. In fact, it is likely that some factors are more important in some circumstances, than others, and as every one of us is unique, it also seems highly likely that some factors will be important for some individuals and other factors may be important for other individuals.