A massive overhaul of children's health is being planned in an attempt to reverse the growing trends of childhood obesity and diabetes.
Senior officials from the capital's health and education authorities admitted that children's health was "not well served".
They said attempts to improve the situation had failed, in part because they were too ambitious, rather than setting specific, achievable goals.
The new School Health Strategy will aim to improve nutrition, encourage exercise and stop children taking up smoking. It will also include mandatory screening and vaccination for common diseases, as well as mental and dental health. More than 100 delegates met yesterday to thrash out the details of the programme.
The conference, hosted by Health Authority-Abu Dhabi (HAAD), was the first step to creating a comprehensive strategy, targeting some of the most concerning areas. Dr Salim Adib, the head of public health at HAAD, said: "We can't ignore that the health of our children is not well served.
"If the situation goes on like this it will be even worse when they are adults. The increased prosperity has brought with it all the secondary effects. We obviously don't want to roll back prosperity but we want to help children make the right choices, particularly early on."
Targets include building more school sports facilities and improving existing ones. Officials will also aim to improve the food in school canteens and cafeterias, with calorie allowances for each age group.
The authority plans to introduce individual care plans for children with chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes, and ensure that every school nurse is trained in life support and emergencies.
HAAD said it would enforce strict rules governing foods in schools, and physical education, working with the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) and the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority, .
Dr Mugheer al Khaili, ADEC's director general, said: "It is a priority for us." He said the authority was working to introduce licensed nurses into the emirate's 305 public schools. Several pilot programmes were under way and a "new school model" was being prepared for a phased introduction next year, he said.
Although food guidelines for canteens were introduced by the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority last year, officials admitted that they were too "radical" to be successful.
"We try, we fail and we learn," Dr Adib said. "The guidelines were too extensive, they were inapplicable."
Canteens were barred from serving food such as felafel, hamburgers and sodas. Instead, they were instructed to offer foods such as fresh fruit, salads, and fish. However, the guidelines did not include calorie counts or sample menus.
Elizabeth Bromfield, the headmistress at Al Shohub Private School for girls, said although vendors were not allowed near the school, pupils found other sources.
"We spend a lot of time talking to students about healthy eating and we try to adhere to all the regulations but there is a great love of junk food type of things, because they're just kids," she said. Pupils still bring in banned fizzy drinks and sweets.
The school would contact parents if younger children had unhealthy lunch boxes, she said, but it was much harder to supervise the older children.
As part of the new strategy, all schoolchildren will be screened for common ailments to give officials a better picture of problem areas. Doctors and school nurses will test hearing, sight, oral health, iron levels and spinal curvature.
Dr Jennifer Moore, the head of family and school health at HAAD, said: "Schools are a fundamentally important part of a child's life but there are many other factors. This strategy needs to look at the family, the home life and the surrounding community."
Dr Moore said the Global School Health Survey 2005 found just over 12 per cent of adolescents were overweight, and another 25 per cent were at risk of becoming overweight.
Part of the problem is that not all schools in Abu Dhabi have adequate physical education facilities. Some, particularly older schools, have a small shaded concrete playground, and no indoor gym, making sport difficult during the summer.
Newer schools, such as the Al Afaq Model School, tend to have better facilities. It has a large indoor gym and outdoor spaces with play equipment.
ADEC plans to build 100 new "green" public schools in the next decade that will have extensive facilities for sport. Schools lacking gymnasiums and canteens will be the first to be replaced.
Much of yesterdays discussion centred on the role of parents. Dr Adib said improving a child's health could have an impact on the rest of the family.
"If we get the children interested, they might get the family interested, but it is more important to concentrate on the children," Dr Adib said. "They are the next generation."
Lamya Mustafa, a mother of three boys at Al Mutabanbi School for Boys, said enforcing healthy rules was difficult because "boys will be boys".
"Even if kids are told what is healthy and what is not, they will still like to snack on fun foods," she said, adding that authorities must create more play areas around the city.
"If it was not for school, there would be nowhere else for the boys to play soccer or basketball. What about during weekends and afternoons and the summer, where can they go then? That is something that should be addressed."
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants
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The five pillars of Islam
Match info
Bournemouth 0
Liverpool 4 (Salah 25', 48', 76', Cook 68' OG)
Man of the match: Andrew Robertson (Liverpool)
Key findings
- Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
- Eating one or two meals a day was associated with a relative decrease in BMI, compared with three meals. Snacks count as a meal. Likewise, participants who ate more than three meals a day experienced an increase in BMI: the more meals a day, the greater the increase.
- People who ate breakfast experienced a relative decrease in their BMI compared with “breakfast-skippers”.
- Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better.
- But scrapping dinner altogether gave the best results. The study found that the BMI of subjects who had a long overnight fast (of 18 hours or more) decreased when compared even with those who had a medium overnight fast, of between 12 and 17 hours.
Employment lawyer Meriel Schindler of Withers Worldwide shares her tips on achieving equal pay
Do your homework
Make sure that you are being offered a fair salary. There is lots of industry data available, and you can always talk to people who have come out of the organisation. Where I see people coming a cropper is where they haven’t done their homework.
Don’t be afraid to negotiate
It’s quite standard to negotiate if you think an offer is on the low side. The job is unlikely to be withdrawn if you ask for money, and if that did happen I’d question whether you want to work for an employer who is so hypersensitive.
Know your worth
Women tend to be a bit more reticent to talk about their achievements. In my experience they need to have more confidence in their own abilities – men will big up what they’ve done to get a pay rise, and to compete women need to turn up the volume.
Work together
If you suspect men in your organisation are being paid more, look your boss in the eye and say, “I want you to assure me that I’m paid equivalent to my peers”. If you’re not getting a straight answer, talk to your peer group and consider taking direct action to fix inequality.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
