JAKARTA - The prevalence of obesity in the population aged 18 years and over in Indonesia increased from 21.8 percent in 2018 to 23.4 percent in 2023.
The Director of Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases at the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) dr. Siti Nadia Tarmizi, M.Epid. said the trend of the increase shows that obesity is a chronic disease that has a serious impact on health.
"Obesity is not just a matter of appearance or lifestyle. This is a chronic disease with high risks to health," said Nadia at the Nutrifood event, quoted from ANTARA.
He explained that obesity occurs due to excessive calorie consumption in the long term, both from processed foods and ready-to-eat foods. In the midst of a modern lifestyle, the consumption of processed foods is considered difficult to avoid.
For this reason, the Ministry of Health together with a number of parties continues to campaign for restrictions on the consumption of sugar, salt, and fat or GGL.
The program is part of the GGL restriction education campaign which has been carried out since 2013 through collaboration between Nutrifood, the Ministry of Health, and the Food and Drug Supervisory Agency (BPOM).
The campaign encourages the public to control the consumption of sugar, salt, and fat and increase literacy in reading processed food packaging labels.
"The most important thing is to recognize the information on the nutritional value and composition on the packaging, so that processed foods that are consumed can actually help reduce the risk of obesity," said Nadia.
He also invited the public to take advantage of the momentum of Ramadan to gradually reduce the consumption of sugar, salt, and fat.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Southeast Asian Food and Agricultural Science and Technology Center of IPB University, Dr. Puspo Edi Giriwono, STP., M.Agr stated that modern food technology is designed to ensure product safety and quality.
According to him, processed food is part of a modern food system that is produced based on science to increase safety, quality, shelf life, and ease of consumption.
"Food additives listed on the packaging have undergone safety studies and have safe limits of consumption, so they are safe to use according to regulations," said Puspo.
He assessed that the main challenge was not the existence of processed food, but rather the public's understanding of the processing process, the composition of the ingredients, and label information.
Public education, according to him, is the key to making the public choose food more wisely and maintain a balanced diet to reduce the risk of obesity.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
