Celebrating the holy month of Ramadan, Dubai has issued a new competition called ” your weight in gold ” promoting weight loss and a healthy life style. For each kilogram of weight you lose, you get one gram of pure gold.
Along the course of the 30 day holy month, you have to lose at least two kilograms to ensure your 2 grams of gold win and be enrolled in the final draw for the top three who lost the most weight to win a golden coin worth 5,400 $. A gram of gold is currently worth about 290 LE, you do the math.
Five countries of the gulf area are in the top ten list of diabetes prevalence in the population. United Arab Emirates comes in second place with 12.2% of the general population suffer from diabetes. Egypt is ranked 20th with 10.4 % and ranked 7th in the arab countries short list.
Type II Diabetes, formerly known as Non-Insulin Dependent Diabetes Millitus ( NIDDM ), is a setteled direct result of obesity along with heart disease and Joint osteoarthropathies. Life style modification with regural exercise and healthy eating has proven t be very effective in preventing the development the disease and help control it and prevent the associated complications.
They could even totally substitute the need for oral medication. Such step from the Dubai authorities show their good intentions for protecting the health of their citizens and if you think it is an extravagant price to pay. Let me paint you a bigger picture.
In a country like Egypt with around 85 million people, about 9 of which suffer from Diabetes, health care budget is divided to target the most socially and economically burden diseases such as diabetes that causes about 36.8 days of work absenteeism according to a national study in the 1990s.
In 2010, Egypt was estimated to spend 16% of its health care budget on diabetes care. This includes the costs of diagnosis, treatment and hospital care and the awareness campaigns with a total of around 3.3 million USD annually, expected to be doubled by 2030.
Imagine the amount of money the could be saved by promoting a healthy active lifestyle with decreasing the rates of the disease prevalence, rates of complications and deaths and the first step is to lose those extra kilograms.
If Arab countries would invest more in health education and awarness campains that reaches their populations in rural and deserted areas as well as urban, there would be a huge impact on the economy.
More money would be saved for the combat against illiteracy, Cancer research, building new schools and hospitals, etc. and even more money would be gained from increased life expectancy and increasing work hours meaning more production. A win win win situation.
So definitely losing the extra weight weighs more than a few grams of gold.
Keep up the good work and stay healthy!!