The Ministry of Health (MOH), represented by the Department of Nutrition and in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) organized today Tuesday a workshop to prepare a national work plan on childhood obesity prevention at Hormuz Grand Hotel.

 The three-day workshop, which presented by two WHO experts, aims at building the capacities for multi-sectorial government group and responsible for planning policies, as well as developing a draft of national work plan on food and physical activity prevent obesity among children. In addition to review the risk factors of childhood obesity, strategies, work plans and international and regional initiatives related to chronic diseases, nutrition and physical activity.     

The workshop will also review number of issues and regional work plans on non-communicable diseases, nutrition and childhood obesity, the international work plan in the field of non-communicable diseases (2013 – 2020), as well as an introduction on WHO tool “from Data to Work”, other investigation tools and existing and current initiatives in the field childhood obesity prevention in the Sultanate and recommendations on children food marketing.

It is worth to mention that, obesity is the top of the non-communicable diseases and it is the main cause of mortality worldwide. Number of obese people has doubled globally since 1980 and there are approximately 3.4 million of adults die each year due to overweight or obesity.

Representatives from the MOH, WHO, UNICEF, along with stakeholders and partners from Shura Council, State Council, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Regional Municipality & Water Resources, Muscat Municipality, Sohar Municipality, Dhofar Municipality, Ministry of Sports Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries and Sultan Qaboos University are participating in this workshop.