ARTICLE REVIEW

Introduction
This article review is about a article entitled The nutrition and health transition in
Malaysia. The article was written by Mohd Ismail Noor who works at the Department of
Nutrition and Dietetics, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This
article was published in The Author 2002, under the section of the Public Health Nutrition:
5(1A), on page 191 until 195.
This article is about the problems that occur among Malaysian on food consumptions
and the trend that could cause many kind of illness, diseases and problems. The article relates
how Malaysia nowadays, on the verge to become a developed country, need to find out ways
on healthy lifestyles especially on good nutritions and dietary programs. If the country needs
of having healthy and strong generations, the problems must be taken seriously. This article
uses various reports and publications from several ministries and selected local studies. it also
provide us with chronic diseases reports in the population and food consumption patterns on
nutrition transition in Malaysia.

Main Objective and Focus

The main onjective of this article is to give better understanding of the link between
demographic variables and food consumption patterns related to the nutrition and health
transition in Malaysia. This article focused on the problems occured and the way to prevent
the in the future. By using data and information from several ministries and local studies, this
article relates the data on various measures with the the growth of the foon intakes and
problems that occured. The messures include the GNP, GDP, gross household incomes, food
balance sheet, growth on western food industries and the BMI/BMR data in Malaysia.

Methodology
Sociodemographic Indicator
The article first method was to collect data of the gross national product (GNP) and
the gross domestic product (GDP) together with the population rates in Malaysia. it was
clearly stated that the population in Malaysia increased from 1980 until 2000. The rates of
life expectancy has also increases for males (66.4 years to 70.2 years) and females (70.5 years
to 75.0 years) since 1980 until 2000. the nation GNP and GDP also has been increased
respectively during these period of time.The increase of household incomes effected the
porverty from 18.4% in 1985 to 5.5% in 2000. The growth also effected the decreasing of
hard-core porvety from 6.3% to 0.5% during these years.

Trends in food consumption

From this article, it showed that the increase of lifestyle has changed the habits on
food consumptions among Malaysian. The increase of taking high calories food like meat and
oils has overcomed the consumption of vegetables and cereals. The trend of having
sweeteners was also increased. Table 2 on page 192.
From this article also, a report from The Ministry of Agriculture showed that the food
consumption of crops such as rice and vegetables were slightly shifted to live stock products
such as meats and eggs that would resolved the high fat and calories food consumptions
agains the high fibre and vitamins rich food. The report also indicated the increase of
imported food from 1985 (US$ 909 million) to 1995 (US$ 2 billion). Table 3 on page 193.
This increases occured when the western food industries started to dominate the fast
food industries in Malaysia. The sales were increased from RM 1 billion in 1997 to RM 1.3
billion in 2000. These sources of food can be related to the increase of chronic diseases and
obesity problems. Table 4 on page 193.

Food intake studies

From this article, in order to have better information on food intakes, several studies
conducted were used. Some studies indicated that the consumption on fat were high in the
urban areas (30%) rather than in the rural areas (20%). The intakes of calories were also high
for urban men (2275 kcal) rather than rural men (2024 kcal). These data showed that urban
areas populations take more fat rather than protein and carbohydrate food in a week.

Prevalence of obesity
This article clearly relates the problems of obesity and overweight could reduce
physical activities and stimulate the highly consumption on fat and higher energy food. A
study made by Ismail and Tan (2000) showed that the increased of obesity with age among
children was 6.6% among 7 years olds, increased to 13.8% among 10 years olds.
There were also data from reports from the World Health Organization(1995) and a
National Health Morbidity Survey(1996)

indicates that there were differences on the

overweight and obesity problems on urban and rural areas with collective data of 15.2%
overweight and 2.2% obese in rural areas (1993-1994) compared with 21.8% overweight and
7.2% obese in urban areas (1993-1994), WHO report. The data also showed that 15.5%
overweight and 4.3% obese in rural areas (1996-1997) compared with 17.4% overweight and
4.5% obese in urban areas (1996-1997), National Health Morbidity Survey. Table 6 on page
193.
Also from this article, according to Table 7 on page 194, the studies on BMR (Basal
metabolic rate), TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) and PAL (physical activity level)
showed that sedentary activities like watching television and playing computer games are
more popular than physical activities that could lead to laziness and obesity problems. The
use of transportation also can reduce physical activities like walking and cycling.

Diet-related chronic non-communicable diseases

This article stated that the increased of chronic and non-communicable diseases rather
than undernutrition and infectious diseases. The data collected from government hospitals
(Table 8 on page 194) shows that the increase of patients admitted were quite high from 1985
until 1996. For example, the admission for cardiovascular diseases like heart attactk increased
from the total of 58 961 in 1985 to 101 985 in 1996. And for deaths report shows that a fairly
invariable in terms of absolute numbers with the highest increase of deaths due to diebetes
disease from 261 deaths in 1985 to 336 deaths in 1996. From the data given, we can clearly
see that poor healthy lifestyles like healthy food consumption and lacks of physical activities
are becoming serious in Malaysia.

Discussions and Suggestions

This article has given us information on food consumption and lack of healthy
lifestyle because of the globalization and urbanization. From here, it seems the more
technology we gain, the more lazy we are. And for some of us, food industries and wealthy
lifestyle can relate to problems like obesity, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases.
For children especially, the consumtion of junk funk and soft drinks can also give them these
kinds of problems.
The first one is the awareness. Adults and parents should aware the dangerous that
may come if we do not eat healthy food. In the fast and demanding world now, fast food seem
to be the best solution for us to have breakfast, lunch and dinner. But by doing that and by
consuming live stock products, we just cannot sit on our chairs and reducing our physical
activities. We should already know to balance our diet and have healthy meals when we eat.
The second one is time. Sometimes we do not have times. Times to play, to walk, to
rest and to do other physical activities. Because of straining in the work place and hard to get

a leave, we actually making ourselves to become lesser to excercise and to have quality time
with our children and families. We should use our free times and also holidays to have fun
and to release of our strains.
The third one is control. As parents, we should how to control. Control comes in many
forms of conditions. For examples, we can control our children eating habits and the food we
buy. We can control our children activities at home and make times for them to have fun
outdoor. We can also control our work stress if we manage time perfectly. So, by having
control, we can create better and healthy lifestyles.

Conclusion
This article can be used for other studies in the future. For us, living a healthy lifestyle
is suppose to be more important than a wealthy lifestyle. The balance that we makes in life
can makes us much happier and reduces signs of dangerous diseases in life. Thank you.

References
Ismail MN, Tan CL.(2000). Prevalence of obesity in Malaysia. The AsiaPacific Perspective:
Redefining Obesity and its Treatment.Geneva: WHO (WPRO)/IASO/IOTF.

Lim TO, Goh BL, Zaki M, et al.(2000). Distribution of body weight, height and body mass
index in a national sample of Malaysian adults. Med. J. Malaysia 2000; 55: 10828.

World Health Organization (WHO). (1998) Obesity: Preventing and Managing the Global
Epidemic. Report of a WHO consultation on obesity. Geneva: WHO.