PUTRAJAYA – Malaysia is still listed as the country with the highest prevalence of diabetes in Southeast Asia, with one out of six Malaysians having diabetes, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dzulkefly Ahmad said.
He added that the results of the National Health and Morbidity Survey 2023, which were announced recently, also showed a rising prevalence of being overweight and obesity among Malaysians, from 50.1% in 2019 to 54.5% in 2023.
“The Health Ministry (MoH) has adopted various approaches to strengthen measures to curb this problem through the ‘war on sugar’ while the Strategic Plan to Reduce Sugar among Malaysians 2024-2030 has been developed and launched on June 29, 2024.
“The plan has six main strategies with 38 initiatives and 65 activities encompassing policies, advocacy and public-private partnerships through a whole-of-society and whole-of-nation approach,” he said in a statement today.
He shared that his ministry had screened 64,846 individuals in 2023 under the National Health Screening Initiative through the Komuniti Sihat Pembina Negara (Kospen) at the workplace and Kospen in communities in 2023,
It had also set up 33 wellness hubs throughout the country to boost community health in a targeted fashion, including reducing sugar intake, with a total of 765,843 clients having obtained services between 2020 and 2023.
“The effort is also strengthened by the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry which launched the ‘Kurang Gula, Kurang Harga’ (less sugar, less costly) campaign,” Dzulkefly said, adding that he takes the issue very seriously.
He pointed out that the sales ban on high-sugar food and drinks such as flavoured drinks, cordial mixes and carbonated drinks has been expanded to all school areas and schools are encouraged to prepare drinking water sources.
The same matter has also been implemented through an initiative to serve only healthy food during meetings at the ministry, government, and private agency levels, he added.
Also, to encourage food and beverage industry operators to reformulate their products to be healthier, the MoH implemented the Healthier Choice Logo (HCL) in 2017 and imposed a tax hike on sugar-sweetened beverages in July 2019. – August 2, 2024