City encourages a healthy lifestyle to beat diabetes
8 May 2016
Note to editors: the following is an extract from a speech delivered by City of Cape Town Executive Mayor, Patricia de Lille, at a talk by renowned nutritional expert and author, Patrick Holford at the Civic Centre today, 8 May 2016
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here today and especially the wonder women, the mothers in our families. I want to wish you all a happy and blessed Mother’s Day.
We all know that women, mothers and grandmothers are to be valued and appreciated for their love, nurturing and for being the rock in our families and society.
On behalf of the City of Cape Town, I say thank you to all mothers for helping us build this a caring city and for being the best caregivers in our communities.
You are making a wise choice to be here today because we are delighted to have a world-renowned psychologist, nutritional expert and author of nutritional advice books, Mr Patrick Holford with us today.
Patrick Holford will be starting his ‘Feel amazing right no’ tour tomorrow in Cape Town before going to other cities across the country.
I reached out to him to ask if he would present some of his advice to some of our residents in Cape Town who do not have the means to hear him speak or buy a book.
He agreed to do so pro bono and I am truly grateful because I want as many people as possible to hear his advice.
Patrick Holford has written 36 books, which have been translated into over 20 languages, selling millions of copies worldwide.
It is safe to say that his advice and books are sought after by millions of people across the world.
Personally, I have great respect for Patrick Holford and have been following his advice for more than 10 years.
I have read many of Patrick’s books and I have seen results like having the energy to do the work I need to do.
The advice that I live by from Patrick Holford which has indeed helped me feel good and have more energy is to watch what I eat, to know what I am putting into my body, and to use natural remedies and products to fight off diseases and maintain my energy.
As a caring city, we place special emphasis on providing quality healthcare to our residents who use our City health facilities.
The main reason I am doing this today is because of the silent killer, diabetes, that most people don’t even know they have.
According to the World Health Organisation, diabetes is listed as one of the top 10 causes of death in the country and the contributing factors are listed as obesity, unhealthy diets and a lack of physical activity.
We have increased our investments to fight diabetes because we are concerned about the increased impact of lifestyle diseases on the population, but also on the health system.
For the current financial year, the City has spent R2,6 million on our health promotion programme and just over R4 million on our nutrition programme.
Going forward, we also want to look at creating job opportunities by recruiting and training women to go out into our communities to educate residents on living a healthy lifestyle.
City Health has introduced screening for diabetes at its clinics where we can calculate a client’s body mass index and do a urine sugar screening and blood-sugar tests.
I would like to appeal to residents to get tested for diabetes because many people with diabetes show no symptoms and go undiagnosed until they develop diabetic complications.
Diabetes is far too common and, as a caring city, through various departments we have invested in resources to encourage healthy living.
Most instances of Type 2 diabetes (which affects about 95% of all people living with diabetes) can be prevented or delayed through healthy eating and increased physical activity.
In response to this we have embarked on efforts to make Cape Town the fittest city, with our smart parks and outdoor gyms so that all residents – young and old – can get active.
We have built a total of 47 outdoor gyms since December 2011.
Each year, the City also hosts the Cape Town Games for Older Persons at the Green Point Athletics tracks where we have fun and games for pensioners but we also have health staff available to do tests and give health advice.
Many of you here may be struggling with things like high blood pressure, you may have suffered a heart attack already, or have diabetes.
I know many of you also want to do more but sometimes your health or lack of energy doesn’t allow you to. We simply have to take better care of ourselves.
In closing, my heartfelt thanks to Patrick Holford for doing this today and thank you for all your wonderful advice and wisdom over the years which has helped me and many others feel better through adopting a healthy lifestyle.
I hope we can all find new advice today to build resilience and take better care of our nutrition and our families.
Thank you, baie dankie, enkosi. God Bless.
End
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