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Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s one-week old president, is a busy man. Yet he’s found time to take a walk every day – for the exercise and a chance to think.
Janet Viljoen explains why Ramaphosa and other regular walkers have the right idea, particularly given the dramatic rise in health problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure in Africa.
Sundeep Ruder echoes this theme while Thandi Puoane talks about the importance of a good, nutritious diet to supplement exercise. And Dickson Amugsi points out that obesity is hardly a uniquely South African problem: it's rising all over the continent's urban centres.
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Top Stories
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Janet Viljoen, Rhodes University
There are many benefits to walking - whether you do it in a group or on your own.
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Sundeep Ruder, University of the Witwatersrand
Diabetes has become a massive global problem and requires a dedicated effort in both the developed and the developing world.
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Thandi Puoane, University of the Western Cape
At least 40% of South Africans are suffering malnutrition because they eat too little nutrients to sustain health.
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Dickson Amugsi, African Population and Health Research Center
Obesity is on the rise among urban African women of reproductive age in all of the 24 countries studied.
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Health + Medicine
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Charles Shey Wiysonge, Stellenbosch University
The burden of communicable disease is declining in Africa and life expectancy is increasing. But non-communicable diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer are wreaking havoc.
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Sundeep Ruder, University of the Witwatersrand
Being able to buy processed "food-like" products is often seen as a mark of personal and material success. Little attention is paid to having a healthy diet.
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Neo Tapela, Harvard Medical School
Africa is expected to have among the steepest increases in the number of people affected by non-communicable diseases - it needs health care systems that can cope.
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Karen Hofman, University of the Witwatersrand; Aviva Tugendhaft, University of the Witwatersrand
South Africa has one last hurdle to cross before it implements a sugar tax to prevent a wide-range of obesity related non-communicable diseases.
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