Anambra Governor’s wife, Mrs. Nonye Soludo has called for urgent action to modify the over-production and over-consumption of foods and beverages that do not undergo healthy production and nutritional assessments .
Mrs. Soludo who stated this in Awka while running a review of her healthy living projects over the last month, expressed concerned over excessive consumption of foods with high content of sodium, sugar and unhealthy fats as against low intake of whole grains, pulses, vegetables and fruits.
Insisting that going full organic remains the surest way to cut down emerging killer diseases, the governor’s wife stated that reducing sodium intake is one of the most cost-effective measures to improve health and reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases.
She further added that the World Health Organization, WHO’s current statistics recorded that an estimated one point eight nine million deaths each year are associated with consuming too much salt, calls for another look at the health value of foods that everyone consumes.
Mrs. Soludo, who is a practicing nutritionist and right health advocate, listed the primary health effects associated with diets high in salt to include high blood pressure, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, gastric cancer and obesity, among others.
She also called for the review of recipe for food products to reduce the salt content and the setting of target levels for the amount of salt in foods and meals, especially among households.
For adults, WHO recommends less than two thousand milligram per day of sodium; equivalent to just under a teaspoon, while for children aged two to fifteen years, it recommends adjusting the adult dose downward based on their energy requirements.
According to the global health watchdog, this recommendation for children does not address the period of exclusive breastfeeding (zero to six months) or complementary feeding with continued breastfeeding (six to twenty-four months).
All salt that is consumed, WHO says, should be iodized, which is essential for healthy brain development in the foetus and young child as well as optimizing people’s mental function in general.
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