Bangladesh women more at health risk than men due to inactivity: WHO

Bangladeshi women are in risks of getting non-communicable diseases such as heart problems and diabetes as they are more physically inactive than men, a new global study said.

Insufficient physical activity is a leading risk factor for non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and diabetes, the report authored by four WHO experts said.

The study, published in The Lancet on Wednesday, suggests that the inactivity has also a negative effect on mental health and quality of life, reports bdnews24.

The Lancet showed that more than one in four adults globally (28 per cent or 1.4 billion people) are physically inactive. This can be, however, as high as one in three adults inactive in some counties.

According to a WHO report in 2014, non-communicable diseases in Bangladesh account for 59 per cent of total deaths.

Of these, cardiovascular diseases cause the highest 17 per cent deaths followed by chronic lung diseases at 11 per cent and cancer 10 per cent.

The NCD Alliance in last October warned that those diseases are affecting the people of the Asian region including Bangladesh younger than the rest of the world.

The Lancet, a British medical journal, said, obesity among boys aged 5 to 19 years was found at 3.0 per cent in 2016 which was only 0.03 per cent in 1975.

Among girls, the rate jumped to 2.3 per cent from almost nil four decades ago at the same age group.

The global school-based health survey in 2014 showed that 59 per cent of Bangladesh adolescents are “insufficiently active” and 79 per cent had high recreational screen time.

Bangladesh government has taken up policies to combat non-communicable diseases, but there is no separate lane for bicycling or proper pavements for walking.