THE one million-odd strong Malaysian civil service has a big problem.
More than 500,000 civil servants are either overweight or obese. We are not surprised.
The National Health and Morbidity Survey 2023, released in November that year, warned us as much: a plump 54.4 per cent of Malaysians were either overweight or obese.
That is more than 17 million portly people. Alarmingly, the rate of increase in the bulky, if spread over 12 years, is close to one per cent per year. Given the country's population of 34.3 million people, 0.8 per cent per year is an enormous increase.
At this rate, Malaysia may be a "fat nation" before we achieve net zero in carbon emission. Putrajaya, we have a problem. And a colossal one at that.
There is a reason why this has become so.
Those who have been tasked to fight obesity have always seen it as a problem to be managed, not one to be prevented. In the language of an expert, obesity is an example of why prevention is better than cure.
Here is why. Firstly, the beginnings of obesity lie in the womb. This is no journalistic advice, but a medical one.
Mothers who eat processed food are really priming their babies to develop a preference for "junk food".
But Malaysian mothers, like the more than 500,000 civil servants and the 16.5 million portly people in the country, from Kangar to Kuching, need help.
This is because we live in an obesogenic world, our second reason. Policymakers can make it less so. They must first begin by declaring that obesity is a chronic illness.
Next, they must take a leaf from the United Kingdom's "traffic light" label to help people make healthy food choices. Laws, too, can be introduced to put a stop to the promotion of foods high in fat, sugar or salt. And to compel restaurants and cafes to add calorie labels to the food they sell, like in the UK.
As for smaller food outlets, Putrajaya can start by encouraging them to do the same, before extending the calorie labelling law to them. The food producers and outlets must understand that the government isn't banning what they produce or sell. The labelling laws are to give people the right information to help them make healthy food choices.
But this does not mean that there is no role for cure in managing obesity. It is manageable, but with great difficulty. This is why prevention must always precede cure.
Medical science gives us an insight. The human body is programmed to return to its old weight, even after months of dieting. The dieting industry doesn't tell us this because if it did so, it would be out of business.
In fact, dieting may be helping to cause obesity, as researchers in the UK are suggesting. The logic is plain. Long periods of dieting disturbs our appetite-regulating hormones.
A year or so after, the rotund client is back on the couch of the dieting consultant seeking to reduce the flab yet again. The lesson is this.
A one-off effort like dieting doesn't work. Try a healthy diet and lifestyle instead. Because we are the food we eat and the lifestyle we lead.