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| Traditional sweetmeats |
The Sinhala and Hindu New Year is here once again. The World Health Day was celebrated on April 7. It is significant that both events are marked together in the month of April. The traditional Sinhala and Hindu New Year is a healthy event and no harm is caused to the health of the people. It always promotes the health of the people. But for this, we have to focus on celebrating the New Year according to our historical traditions and rituals.
Unfortunately still some people think that alcohol is necessary to celebrate the New Year. But in our traditions alcohol had no place during the New Year. There is no need to describe the harm caused to the human health by alcohol. But still some people buy alcohol before the New Year holidays and stock them to use during New Year celebrations. They end up in the hospitals seeking treatment even before the New Year holidays end. It is pathetic to see how these people do the same mistake again and again in every New Year until they end up in a hospital bed for the rest of their life.What has the modernized new year done to the health of Sri Lankans? It is very interesting to see what has happened to the health of the people with this modernization of the New Year. Earlier it was the cuckoo bird who announced that the new year is round the corner. But now it is advertisements which come, long before the New Year. The majority are food advertisements.
Read moreHealth Minister Maithripala Sirisena recently pointed out the importance of introducing standards for sweetmeats. According to the Health Ministry findings, at the moment there is no standard, rules or regulations for the sweet meats available in Sri Lanka. Any company can produce sweetmeats adding any amount of sugar.This is not about our traditional sweetmeats such as Kevum, Kokis and Aluwa. It is all about cakes, biscuits, toffees and similar sweetmeats available in the market. Nowadays people are buying more of such sweetmeats because they are very lazy to make traditional sweetmeats at home and because of the lack of knowledge on how to make them. But when it comes to traditional sweetmeats people know how much sugar to be added to get the real taste.
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| Avoid foods that contain excess sugar |
Then comes the fats and salt, not the fats and salt in our traditional sweetmeats and other food varieties, but fat in western fried dishes we make during all festive seasons. In the past our ancient Sri Lankan people ate a lot of fat during festive seasons and worked hard during the year. They did not have any sicknesses such as diabetes as much as present day people. This is because they ate, they worked hard and they had healthy food habits throughout the year. They did not eat fried rice and fried chicken throughout the week. They did not work in air conditioned rooms sitting idly. It is time to pay our attention to our health according to our traditional customs. All our New Year customs are based on protecting health and promoting personal hygiene. Neglecting healthy eating habits and taking antibiotics when we fall sick will not do any good for us.
The theme of this year’s World Health Day was ‘Use antibiotics rationally’. According to my personal experiences, a lot of people seek the assistance of antibiotics after the New Year. The reason is they eat whatever they get and end up being sick. The other fact is visiting crowded places and moving among big crowds while shopping and travelling.
During this time people catch colds and similar viral infections easily. Here come the antibiotics, the saviour! But there is no need to use antibiotics for a viral flu. The most dangerous practice is using antibiotics irrationally.
The World Health Day theme, ‘Use antibiotics rationally’, is all about antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance has already become an issue in Sri Lanka and all the other countries. This can be described in simple words. In Sri Lanka people can buy antibiotics over the counter without a prescription from most of the private pharmacies, but in foreign countries this cannot be done.
Here people buy antibiotics without doctors’ prescriptions and use them according to the way they want.
Sometimes when a doctor prescribes antibiotics to a patient, he or she does not follow the doctor’s advice and would continue it for longer periods or stop it without taking the prescribed amount. People use antibiotics for viral infections which is unnecessary and use the strongest antibiotic available. As a result the body develops a resistance against antibiotics (the body get used to antibiotics).
According to specialist doctors attached to the Health Education Bureau, antibiotic resistance was discovered for the first time in 1948.
The number of usable antibiotics are decreasing in the world due to antibiotic resistance in people. This had been discovered from the patients who undergo medical treatment at Intensive Care Units (ICUs) countrywide. The mechanism of developing new and stronger antibiotics is very slow and expensive.
Daily News By Nadira Gunatilleke
