NURHASHIMAH BINTI DAHLAN
Be a class of your own!
DOUBLE BURDEN OF MALNUTRITION
Contradictory as it seems, malnutrition is a key contributor to obesity - Madeleine M. Kunin
DOUBLE BURDEN MALNUTRITION? CHECK THIS OUT!
Talking about the double burden of malnutrition, what is that exactly on your mind? Why it is called a “double burden”? It means that each of the issue complementary to each other. Definition from WHO 2003 states that double burden of malnutrition is characterized by the coexistence of undernutrition along with overweight and obesity, or diet-related non-communicable diseases, within individuals, households and populations, and across the life course.
While a part of the world is burdened with obesity, another part is troubled with undernutrition.
Committed to Excellence
SUGAR AND OBESITY
Today, I am going to discuss more on obesity. Many factors contribute to obesity and one the factors that I am going to highlight is sugar intake. Report from National Health Survey concluded that the connection between the calories and obesity are caused by high intake of sugar that contributed to “obesity and diabetes epidemic”. In Malaysia, the price of sugar is highly subsidized. Deputy Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs minister Chong Chieng Jen stated that Malaysia have the cheapest price of sugar among the ASEAN countries; RM2.95 for coarse white sugar and RM3.05 for fine granulated sugar.
Since the real sugar is fully subsidized, the government introduced Sugar-sweetened Beverages (SSB) to control the intake of sugar. However, the tax is only implemented on ready-to-drink beverages sold off the shelves and exclude alcoholic beverages, cordial and unsweetened milk products. Under the new tax, 40 cent will be imposed on non-alcoholic beverages, except for milk-based drinks containing lactose with more than 5g of sugar per 100ml, a 40 cent tax per liter will be imposed on beverages with more than 12g of sugar per 100 ml and a 40 cent per liter tax will be imposed on milk-based beverages that contain lactose for every 7g of sugar per 100ml.
The introduction of the tax is highly affected the manufactures and the importers. But how about the consumers? Did we really against the new tax? Can we make another choice? The affordable price and readily available of real sugar is the threat. Just because the SSB have been implemented, does not meant that the world is over. People are determined to survive under critical circumstances. The consumers are still continue enjoying their teh-tarik or kopi O, ais kacang, cendol, kuih-muih and etc that are concentrated in sugar since these are tax-free.
IS IT GOOD OR NOT?
In my point of view, the implementation of SSB should be stricter that covers all sugar-contained beverages. The implementation can be carried out from stage to stage. A win-win situation can be made between the policy makers and the manufactures. While for the sugar, withdrawing the subsidy of the price will caused a public chaos. The subsidy may be reduced to half and replaced it with other items according to the economy status. There are many other things that are more beneficial to be subsidized. Thus, the public will not make such issue caused they lose something better for the best.