60% of urban dwellers suffer from obesity due to poor eating habits and high consumption of fast foods and unhealthy meals. In the rural areas 19.5% of the rural population suffers from the same.

In the name of keeping up with trends and the association of food and affluence, Nairobians risk the trap of lifestyle diseases due to the lack of consciousness of what they put in their mouths. Joseph Vutiki, CEO of MAX International, an international nutritional supplement company, says, “Your future can’t be bright if cells are unhealthy. Nobody ever thinks about anything if you are sick. The issue of health is so important especially when thinking about times that we are in.”

Urban dwellers in Nairobi tend to want to have eaten in the best places or the latest joints, and a majority of these eating joints serve fast food. Looking at some of the different fast-food restaurants in the CBD alone at lunch hour, the numbers pack the tables in a lot of the chains of restaurants on multiple streets.

Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health. A body mass index (BMI) over 25 is considered overweight, and over 30 is obese. The issue has grown to epidemic proportions, with over 4 million people dying each year as a result of being overweight or obese according to the 2017 report on the global burden of disease. – World Health Organization

If we go by the saying, “you are what you eat,” then many of us are at risk of obesity. Giving in to some of these definitions and statistics, watching one’s weight has become a new necessity in this generation.