The Nigeria Medical Association, (NMA-FCT) elders forum has advised Nigerians, especially the youth, on the need to eat right for healthy living, saying such also controls life expectancy.
The Acting Chairman of the association’s elders forum, Dr Udofia Enefiok, gave the advice at a meeting tagged “A day out with the elders”.
The meeting was part of the activities lined up for the 2023 Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the association.
Enefiok advised Nigerians, particularly the youth, not to eat anyhow because such food was free.
He added that everyone must relate properly with the kind of food eaten.
According to him, at every stage of life, there are specific food made for those stages and that “if you carry food that you have been eating when you are young and eat such quantity at age 60 or 70, you are doing yourself more harms than good.
“It is important to know that God created us and make provisions for a lot of things, a lot of food. God does not do things without reason and he kept those things for us to live with.
“It is expected that those foods are for purposes which we must get to know and then use them appropriately in order to stay healthy, that is the expectation of God”.
He said unfortunately a lot did not relate well with those foods, “we do what we want, we eat what we want because it is free, and God cannot constraint us, therefore we cannot live to achieve the old age we want”.
“It is not that we won’t die, God may want us to die at a particular time or from a natural disaster, or other unforeseen circumstances. Some deaths are from the food we eat and it results to sicknesses.
“We have a duty to ensure we relate with our food properly, eat our food properly, to sustain our lives over crumbs that is just the message we are trying to pass to everybody.”
He said that if one ate quality food, the cells, as the basic foundations of life, would also be healthy and the organs of the body such as the heart, kidney and others would also be healthy.
Enefiok disclosed that the forum realized that eating right could avoid some diseases like hypertension, diabetes cardiac arrest, kidney failure and others.
The NMA-FCT Chairman, Dr Charles Ugwuanyi, stated that the meeting was basically organised for young Nigerians, especially young doctors to tap from the knowledge of the elders who passed through medical profession before them.
Represented by his vice, Dr Eno Ekop, he stated that elders always had words of wisdom for the young ones and that when the youth interacted with them, they got to learn a lot from the elders.
“If you start early to make food your medicine, it is not all about taking pills, lifestyle medicine is a major issue and that is basically what today’s gathering is all about,” he said.
Dr Ayogu Emeka, Chairman, Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the AGM, also advised Nigerians to eat right to stay healthy and live long.
According to him, there will be a certain age in life when one will become old, and that if one did not take care of himself, some conditions may set in and it will require you to take drug more than food.
He said that the idea of the meeting was to advise everybody on how to eat healthy food, so that one could live long, due to eating the right quantity of food and avoid taking drugs.
The Chairman of the occasion, Prof. Olufemi Babalola, also called on Nigerians to eat right and avoid diseases associated with poor diet like Obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart attack, stroke and others.
