Young People Less Aware On Dangers Of High Sugar Intake

BY MUHAMMAD AFIQ MOHD ASRI KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 5 (Bernama) -- People here especially the young are less concerned about the importance of health care, especially on controlling sugar intake in their meal. Despite repeated advice given by the Health Ministry on the dangers of high sugar intake, they do not seem to be bothered about the harm they are doing to themselves by consuming to much sugar. A secondary school teacher here, Muniammiah S. Saminathan, 49, said youths did not take the problem seriously thinking sugar-related diseases like diabetes would not affect them. Another secondary school teacher, Norizan Daud, 57, said the problem was also due both husbands and wives holding jobs and thus unable to provide nutritious meals for the family. She said this resulted in parents giving money to their children to buy food but they (children) would usually prefer junk food which were high in sugar and cholesterol. The Health Ministry in a newspaper report on Wednesday suggested that sugar intake be limited to eight grames per 100 millilitres of fluids. A study conducted on the amount of sugar in Malaysians' favourite drink 'teh tarik' found that it was at a very high level. As such, the ministry recommended that people to switch to less sweet 'teh tarik' to reduce the number of diabetics in Malaysia. The same report also revealed that high cholesterol cases in the country increased from 20.7 per cent in 2006 to 35.1 per cent last year. -- BERNAMA Malaysia