Monki
Behaviors are impossible to change until something happens. people like their steak well done and anything else is a fight. Till then theres nothing you can do.
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quote author=MOON Ki link=topic=2690.msg18539#msg18539 date=1448836880]
Cancers has always been there. But with the population increase , people living longer , better diagnosis ( on average) , and more public awareness , and publicity peppered with rhetoric and emotions , we are hearing people screaming ' cancer epidemic'
Yes, it has always been there, but there is much more to the story that "improved awareness". One trend that should not require much arguentation is the observation that as Africans do better financially, they tend to take up Western lifestyles that are seen as signs of success, regardless of how unhealthy. Fresh
sukuma-wiki gets replaced with all sorts of processed crap that "show" that the eater has "arrived". That sort of thing.
During the teacher's strike, I was astonished to read of one teacher's complaints about the effects of not getting paid. According to the person, things were so bad that his family was being forced to have breakfast with sweet potatoes instead of [highly processed] white bread, that they had been forced to cut down on the sugar in their tea, etc! (I wish I could manage to have sweet potatoes for breakfast every morning!)
Back on
sukuma-wiki, a purely personal note: Whenever I visit, I am always astonished at the number of "well-off" Kenyans who consider it an embarrassment. Some form of meat, preferably beef, seems to be the thing for people who are "going places". The number of Kenyans on that path, and who barely get any fresh vegetables on a regular basis, is surprising. On my last visit home, when I got overwhelmed with the "meatiness", I told some fellow that on at least one day a week I eat only
ugali and
sukuma-wiki (which the local farmers produce for animal-feed and products from the seed), and I eat beef no more than twice a month. He couldn't understand that, perhaps because he was just in the process of getting a barmaid to throw onto a grill a huge slab of beef to go with the beers---which, according to said barmaid, are always ordered "
kwa by case", unless one is poor and so, of necessity, must order a bottle at a time. (My friend does not consider himself poor.) The fellow also smokes and apparently never heard of exercise.
Personal anecdotes aside: Numerous studies have shown that while developed countries are trying to shape up, we are picking up where they leave at the bad end of things:
While cancer rates in general are decreasing in the United States and many western countries, they are increasing in less developed and economically transitioning countries, including Eastern European countries, because of adoption of unhealthy western lifestyles such as smoking and physical inactivity and consumption of calorie-dense food. Cancers that were once known as diseases of industrialized countries, such as lung, colon, and breast cancers, are now commonly occurring in economically transitioning and less developed countries. Most of these countries also continue to be disproportionately affected by cancers related to infectious agents, such as cervix, liver, and stomach cancers, which are potentially preventable.
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/19/8/1893.fullBeyond food and lifestyle factors that individuals can control, there are air pollution, pollution from improper disposal of industrial waste, other forms of environmental pollution, etc. Here is Beijing today:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34957373In Kenya (and similar places), is anyone monitoring what happens with industrial waste and other dangerous crap?
Mya88 notes:
Kenya, as a first, the government should have invested in data to find out why that is the case, if at all they are serious about this......... ie GMO foods, Fertilizer, pesticide, steroids in Animals etc....... and mitigated the cause.
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