Dear readers,

In the article regarding childhood overweight and obesity, I’ve mentioned the Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Let’s have a deeper look at what is meant by NCDs.

Brief overview
People of all age groups and countries are affected by NCDs, also known as chronic diseases.
For non-communicable disease is meant a disease that is not transmissible directly from a person to another. The four main types of NCDs are cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and cancers.

Why should we care about that?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), NCDs account for about 70% of all deaths worldwide (41 million), including 15 million in the prime of their lives (aged 30-69 years), mostly in developing countries.

Risk factors
Modifiable behavioural risk factors (the use of tobacco, unhealthy food choice, physical inactivity and the harmful use of alcohol) lead to metabolic risk factors (overweight and obesity, hyperglycaemia, hyperlipidaemia and raised blood pressure) all increasing the risk of NCDs.

PA is health

As previously mentioned, physical inactivity is one of the leading risk factors for NCDs.

The practice of regular PA plays an important role in the promotion of health. Moreover, there is increasing evidence supporting the importance to engage the regular practice of PA by people of all age groups.
Hence, there is only one thing that I can say:

It’s time to move: exercise is the key to health.

References
World Health Organization (WHO) 1 June 2018. Noncommunicable diseases.

Edited by
Dott.ssa Francesca Greco