No limit to what we can achieve with healthy people – Gambari

Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Gambari, has said there is no limit to what the nation can achieve and attain with healthy people.

He said unhealthy living conditions have led to the explosion of various diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, stroke and hypertension.

Gambari, who said it is important to focus on health as much as there is focus on work as both are mutually reinforcing,  said with the demand for more working hours, people stay awake late into the night and indulge in easy packaged junk food than home cooked food.

He spoke in Abuja during a book launch entitled: “Your Microbiome is a Wonder of Nature: Activate and Actualise,” and with the theme: “Living To Healthy Longevity.”

While noting that the book highlights the fact that to live well means eating natural whole foods with fibre and fermented foods, shows how doing so would prevent unhealthy conditions and diseases.

“With healthy people, there is no limit to what our nation can achieve and attain. We, as a people, must encourage the follow-up initiatives after the launch to create massive awareness to enhance wellness and quality of life of our fellow citizens.

“We owe it as duty to create an enabling environment to stay mentally and physically fit for our nation and ourselves,” he said.

The author/host and co-ordinator, Ositadinma Anaedu, said writing the book came from his personal experience, when he had high blood pressure and high cholesterol due to a change in food that made him weak.

Anaedu, who explained that people cannot wait until things get so bad before taking care of  themselves, said it takes a decade or two for things done in the past to emerge as a problem.

He said younger people permanently get pregnant with fat due to excessive consumption of simple sugar, simple flour like bread, biscuits, and chin chin.

“We want to let the youths know that it takes decades for things you have done before to emerge as a problem, and now I am seeing younger people getting permanent pregnancy of fat, the moment it happens, you have lost control,” he said.

On food production in the country, he said the food dynamic in the country is not very good because the country is not producing at the local level the type of food that would help.

Chairman of the launch, Jasper Jumbo, said a healthy population contributes towards a healthy economy, saying, if the employees of an organisation are unhealthy, the profits of that organisation invariably nosedive and a lot of losses would be incurred in sustaining the unhealthy cost of prolonged illness.

He said the book aligns with the traditional adage which holds that ‘prevention is better than cure’.