KARACHI: The local governments should concentrate on children's health and take measures to prevent them from becoming diabetics; a health expert recently spoke at Karachi Press Club on World Diabetes Day 2021.
At a conference organised by the Pakistan Endocrine Society (PES) in association with a 'Discovering Diabetes' project, health experts warned that Pakistan was advancing to lead globally with the highest number of children with diabetes as over ten million Pakistani children were obese due to sedentary lifestyle.
They urged the authorities to make sugar-sweetened beverages unaffordable by increasing taxes on them, including healthy lifestyle practices in the curriculum, and making physical activities mandatory at schools.
Dr Musarrat Riaz, a renowned endocrinologist and publication secretary of the PES, said Pakistan ranked third globally with 33 million diabetic people. She said that the same number of pre-diabetics in the country were implied to become diabetics in the coming years.