Follow what you preach

Minister tells doctors:

Doctors who advice the public to eat healthy food and avoid fast food always eat short eats and fast food. At the end of doctors' seminars the invitees are served food made out of wheat flour, Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena said.

The Minister expressed these views at a ceremony organized by the Non Communicable Diseases Unit (NCD) of the Health Ministry.

Minister Sirisena said that people usually take breakfast at 8.30 am and have tea again at 10.30 am. Within two hours, people eat and drink tea twice, he said.

Minister Sirisena stressed that the country has only 20 million people but annually 45 million people obtain treatment from OPDs of state hospitals.

A large number of people receive in-house treatment. Forty Sri Lankans die daily from strokes and 150 persons die from heart attacks. Around 350 persons die from NCDs.

Around 12 percent of the National income represent the money from selling liquor but 22 percent of that income is spent on NCDs, he said.

"After every seminar, organizers serve food that promotes diabetes. The doctors should follow their own advices first and set a good examples to the others. "I have now to teach how to eat. If we need to be healthy we have to control our food intake," Minister Sirisena said.

Minister Sirisena declined to eat food served at the function.