About 35% of Population Are Smokers

About 35 per cent of Fiji’s population are obese, about 65 per cent are overweight and about 30 to 35 per cent of people were smokers. The revelation came from newly appointed Fiji College of General Practitioners president, Dr Rajesh Maharaj.

He said general practitioners (GPs) would work hard to address health problems in the country. Dr Maharaj said he also required the college to help society and communities by looking into the social ills like domestic violence, illicit drugs, crimes and improper human behaviour.

Future Plans

More emphasis will also be placed on the prevention of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs).

“We want to focus a lot on NCD prevention and proper management of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, asthma, cancer so we want that and we want to play a vital role in patient education and NCD prevention,” Dr Maharaj said.

“We want to work in partnership with Government, with NGOs (non-government organisations), religious organisations, and communities and even in schools where we want to introduce health education to students.”

“We want to educate our people about all the dangerous diseases, diet and exercise to maintain good health, diet is the key, whatever you put in your body determines the outcome, education on natural and healthy diet.”

Dr Maharaj added that part of the college’s future plans was to contribute towards national building.

So if we can inspire our people to follow a natural diet and not to rely on processed foods, carbonated drinks and snacks and sugar loaded foods, if they move from that and they eat healthy natural food then obviously our nation will be healthy,” he added.

“I personally feel and I am passionate about it that Fiji can be self-sufficient, we have enough resources.”

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