Young Saudis launch initiatives to promote healthy living

IT is quite common in the Kingdom to see people who depend on fast food chains for their daily intake of calorie in total disregard for the negative consequences of their bad eating habits.

Experts blame a fast-paced lifestyle and a lack of health awareness for the growing trend, which has taken the number of diabetics and people with other lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure to unprecedented levels. Everyone in society has started to see at least one of his or her relatives suffering from one or more of these diseases. Increased concerns about the prevailing situation has pushed

many young Saudis to choose a new path help society to avoid the high possibility of catching chronic diseases. Saudi Gazette met with three such individuals who adopted different ways to promote a new lifestyle, which includes healthy and harmless food habits and workouts.

Saleh is a 27-year-old gym trainer, who has been in the field of sports for four years. "I learned from my older relatives' the mistakes of consuming unhealthy food in day-to-day life and having no exercising routines. However, when I understood the negative impacts of such a lifestyle, I decided to choose a different path. I decided to live better by adopting healthier options," he said.

Saleh went on to say that as time passed by, he got healthier. He tried to spread the information he had to reinforce a healthier lifestyle in society.

"I did not want to keep the good information and my experience in the sports field to myself. I got to social media platforms and used them to explain different types workouts, the number of reps, and how to do the training correctly. Furthermore, I talked to them about my relatives' experiences in being diagnosed with chronic diseases and how we can avoid disease to live better and enjoy the blessings of life more," Saleh said.

Khaled is a 25-year-old university student who also uses social media to disseminate messages to encourage a healthy style among people. "I cook very well and I like cooking. I used my hobby to motivate others to adopt a healthy lifestyle and keep away from unhealthy restaurants and fast food joints. I tell my viewers and followers healthy recipes and I used to come live on Instagram. Most of my recipes do not take a long time to prepare because I know lots of women are working now and they do not have much time to spare for the kitchen," he said.

Ahmed is another youth who just rented a food truck and decided to be different from his competitors. He offered his customers healthy food prepared by himself at home.

"All food trucks offer burgers and pizza. I thought of ways to stand out in the crowd. It was just an idea that I was prepared to make work for the sake of standing out. I started reading about healthy food and I tried cooking them at home," Ahmad said.

"You can enjoy tasty delicious food that doesn't harm your body. I then adopted this to feed my customers healthy food. People first tried it out of curiosity, and when they noticed the difference they always came back."