Hai Phong works to prevent lifestyle diseases

Students at Dong My Primary School in Hanoi’s Thanh Tri district attend a swimming lesson (Photo: VNA)

Hai Phong (VNA) – An event aiming to raise public awareness about lifestyle-related disease prevention was held in the northern port city of Hai Phong on September 8.

The event, held by the Centre for Preventive Medicine of Hai Phong city and Kagawa Prefecture of Japan, is part of a project to prevent lifestyle-related diseases in Hai Phong city.

Addressing the event, Director of the municipal Centre for Preventive Medicine Do Manh Cuong said that the project was built with support of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and is being implemented along with Kagawa Prefecture and the Department of Education and Training of the city.

The first phase of the project was launched in 2010-2014, which focused on the training and capacity enhancement for health workers of the municipal Centre for Preventive Medicine. Meanwhile, the second phase building of preventive models against lifestyle diseases began in 2016 and runs until 2019.

The project aims to establish a model against lifestyle diseases and disseminate information to all local schools, he noted.

Furthermore, the project will provide training for health workers in schools, as well as work to integrate the model into school curricula and arrange additional refresher courses if needed.

In 2016-2017, the Hai Phong’s Centre for Preventive Medicine held medical examinations and surveyed eating habits and lifestyle to assess nutrition, obesity rate and related factors of students in two local primary schools.

The results showed that the rate of overweight students in Dinh Tien Hoang and Le Hong Phong schools remained high at 48.7 percent and 51.8 percent, while the obesity rate stood at 22.9 percent and 24.1 percent, respectively.

Many students were reported to have high-risk habits that lead to excess weight and obesity, while most of only participate in physical activities at school.-VNA