Online Doctor Consultation Platforms like Lybrate Come to the Aid of Overweight, Obese in Goa

PANAJI:
Breathlessness, panting, short breaths and gasping. All this became very frequent in the last few years as Regina Paul gained weight and more weight. Initially, she wasn’t much serious about it. But as these signs became more pronounced, it got worrisome for her.
Not knowing what to do, she searched about her condition online, only to be bombarded with unverified content. But in the sea of information, she came across a health tip on obesity on Lybrate, which was posted by a bariatric surgeon with experience of over 20 years. The health tip, which the 29-year-old found authentic, helped her understand that she had very well joined the obese club.
Regina then consulted a top nutritionist in Mumbai on the Lybrate platform about her diet and weight management. Heredity couldn’t be blamed in her case. She was gaining weight because of her bad habit of consuming too much of junk food and lack of physical activity. The nutritionist gave Regina a diet chart for six months and suggested involvement in physical activities. The improvement was monitored routinely in the period by the nutritionist. The six months ended on a good note for Regina who happened to reduce her body mass index (BMI) below 30, the benchmark for being obese.
Obesity is a weighty issue, not just for a person dealing with it but also for a country which has to bear the brunt of it. For India too, it has become burdensome. As per the recently released fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2015-16, the number of obese people in the country has doubled in the last 10 years, with over 39.3% people being obese in 2014-15 as against 21% in 2004-05. Startlingly, in Goa 33.5% women and 32.6% men have been found to be overweight compared to the national figures of 20.7% and 18.6%, respectively.
“Lybrate is using technology to make quality healthcare accessible to the people in the country. When it comes to issues related to weight and obesity, the platform comes in handy to the patients and to the family members of those dealing with it. The platform’s unique Health Feed has a number of health tips from healthcare experts, including on how to control weight and the adverse effect of obesity on health. These are helpful for overweight and obese people and even for those who are healthy as they can take preventive measures to stay fit,” said said Saurabh Arora, Founder and CEO, Lybrate.
The major concern is that obesity leads to multiple other health problems ranging from Diabetes, Hypertension, Cardiovascular diseases to problems related to kidney and liver. Amid rising instances of obesity-related cases in Goa, growing number of people in the state are taking help of online doctor consultation platforms like Lybrate to consult healthcare experts online about healthy eating habits, physical exercises and weight management, among others.
Lybrate, India’s first and largest online doctor consultation platform,hasover a lakh healthcare expert on the platform. These include experts like internal medicine specialists, bariatric surgeons, dieticians, nutritionists and physiotherapists who are available for assistance to the users on weight- and obesity-related queries.
If media reports are to be believed, the Indian government is looking closely at policy proposals that deal with imposing fat tax on fatty and sugary foods.As of now, Kerala is the only state in India to impose a fat tax on junk food.