North West Health on World Salt Awareness Week

The North West Department of Health urge communities to take actions during the World Salt Awareness Week which is marked on 14 – 20 March. The awareness is to educate members of the public that salt can damage their health and it is linked to serious health conditions such as stroke and heart failure. There is also increasing evidence supporting links between our current high salt diets and the onset of stomach cancer, osteoporosis, obesity and kidney stones and kidney disease.

Salt Awareness Week this year is observed under the theme: ‘Shake the Habit’!

Each year Action on Salt organise a national ‘Salt Awareness Week’ and an international ‘World Salt Awareness Week’ to help raise awareness of the damaging effect of too much salt to our health.

Salt Awareness Week will shine a spotlight on a simple yet effective approach that we can all take to improve our health – by shaking the salt habit!

We have known for some time now that too much salt can harm our health, leading to unnecessary deaths from heart attacks and strokes. Salt reduction has been a feature of food policy for decades, and is accepted globally as a cost effective strategy to improve public health.

Salt reduction policies targeted specifically at the food industry are necessary and proportional: three quarters of the salt the nation eats each day is already in packaged and prepared foods. This cannot be removed by the consumer, so simply telling people to eat less salt will not work when our food is full of it.

This year, join us as we ask the food industry to shake their salt habit, so that we can all live longer, healthier lives.

“To ensure that our people continue to lead a healthy lifestyles with reduced risks of heart-attacks, strokes, stomach cancer, osteoporosis as well as obesity. More efforts must be made to cut high intake of salt in our respective households and protect children from excessive intake of food stuff with high salt content especially on snacks” said MEC Madoda Sambatha

Source: Government of South Africa