SUVA, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Diabetes Fiji hosted a blue breakfast here on Friday to raise public awareness on the importance of having a healthy breakfast in addressing Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD).
Fiji's Wellness Dietician Kiti Sorovaki said Friday with the blue breakfast they had a cash calorie exercise to raise awareness on diabetes and related issues.
"We are encouraging people to eat more fruits and vegetables because it's better for their health overall, so the exercise is to teach them about the fact that the food which are more natural are lower in calories and that's why it's better to choose these kinds of food,"Sorovaki said.
Sorovaki said the main point of this exercise was for the Fijian people to see that fruits and vegetables are very low in calories in comparison to processed food.
Diabetes Hub also conducted a donation drive along with the blue breakfast to assist underprivileged children living with Type 1 diabetes.
Earlier this year, the World Life Expectancy ranking on diabetes placed Fiji number one once again in the number of deaths caused by diabetes.
According to the World Life Expectancy ranking on diabetes, Fiji has the highest rate at 187.9 per 100,000 deaths.
Fiji's Health Ministry reported that currently almost one in every three Fijians are being diagnosed with diabetes. That is 30 percent of the population of more than 880,000 Fijians.
Fiji uses over 400 million Fijian dollars (about 189.5 million U.S. dollars) annually on NonCommunicable Diseases related treatments. This includes money which is used to cater for the average amount of three amputations which is conducted in a day.
Worldwide, diabetes caused 5.1 million deaths in 2013.
