AN OPINION ON THE MENTAL FITNESS IN GHANA

A psychologist based at the Accra Psychiatry Hospital once revealed that nine out of ten Ghanaians had a mental challenge. Dr Akwesi Osei's revelation debunks the claim that walking down the streets naked and unkempt is the only manifestation and definition of madness.

All Ghanaians suffer one mental illness from another.

Mental fitness, here in Ghana, is arguably a debative topic to probe into. But records show that the daill stresses and pressures on the average Ghanaian continue to reduce the tenacity of the mental faculty. Not a dawn moment in the dailies reveals cases of suicide and homicide in communities here in Ghana.

A deserted mentallychallenged woman.

Stress, if assessed investigatively shows that the nature of the Ghanaian job market, the high demands from education, the unending efforts in marriages, the changing scenes of cultures and the innundation with information are but examples of how prone the Ghanaian mind is to becoming mentally unstable.

Although the rate at which persons are losing their minds and chosing the streets keep rising steadily, the percentage of the number of persons mentaly unstable also remains relevant. It is surprising though how this phenomena stretching through every economic level in Ghanaians; the poor, middle class and upper class thus making it a national issue.

With students as young as 21 battling with deppression; with teenagers struggling with self identity, with formal and informal workers striving to make ends meet with the palsy salary paid them, the argument is clear that we all have a mental issue or another and that just seeing other mentally challenged accross the strreets should rather inform us on the question of what happens next should our mental inbalances deteriorate.

For now it is clear that mental health in Ghana cannot be assesed from the back ground of persons with severe mental challenges; but within us.

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AN OUTLOOK ON SLUMS AND HUMAN HEALTH.

 
It has been revealed that over 48 per cent of Ghanaians living in Accra, the capital city of Ghana can be located living in slums or better still, poorly laid out settlements. What this means is that many a Ghanaian either share a room with four or more people. What this also means is the fact that accommodation remains a drain to many- Squatting therefore remains a cold solace.

Overcrowding, lack of portable water, electricity and community development can be seen as the very description to a slum settlement. But what about the health implications?

Coastal Slum in Jamestown

A stroll down the inns of the coastal slums of Jamestown in Accra greets you with a breeze of sweaty pungent odour and filth from tightly non spacious rooms and greasy open gutters. For once you will tend to think you are on a dump site but a closer realisation startles you of your real location.

A well laid out settlement
 

The sheer prevalence in premature deaths of all natures and form; the clear scenes of teenage pregnancies; the usual adaptation to filth and the contagious culture of idleness are but some of the health implications slum settlements tend to have on settlers.

Although much effort is being made to quell the ravaging effect on the expansion of slums across the regional capitals especially within the coastal plains of Accra, it is veritably clear that this phenomena forever reveals the huge health gap between the many a poor and the little a rich.

Yes the battle for healthy living and complete fitness can be won through healthy eating and exercising. But what happens when the very roof one lies under; not to talk of his environment is short of a consciousness to human dignity.
Spacious housing alone reveals the health gap between the rich and poor in urban Ghana.

THE GHANAIAN MEAL : A QUEST TO GET FIT?

Countries and cultures around the world are characterised not only by their language or beliefs but also by the very meals they take in. These meals, as ingrained in the fibre and lifestyle of the people, either tend to benefit or harm the fitness of them.


Here in Ghana, the quest to get fit keeps getting stronger and wider. but what stands missing is the quest to "eat fit". The eating habits of the average Ghanaian, not to talk of the meal compositions, is but an example which contradicts with  the health culture of theirs.


The traditional meals of Ghanaians range from high cholestrol foods to less vegetarian meals. Meals eaten without the concern of time factors; be it in the morning, noon or night.
It is said that eating tasty meals isn't eating healthy meals and that how tasty a meal is doesn't assure  the attainment of a healthy body.


The case of  Ghanaian meals cant be an exception. Meals such as fufu and palmnut soup, Kenkey and fish, tuozafi and kokonte contain high calories and cholesterols which demand fat burning exercises to dissolve. unfortunately these meals find themselves on the menu table of night food vendors as leading menus. 

With the increasing rate of premature death especially within the urban sectors, it is quiet wary to know that meals and their ingredients play a massive role in these deaths. Yes it may be argued that the Ghanaian dish is for the Ghanaian tommy but we also need t know that some of these dishes and the quantities taken are suicidal!



The Awakening of the Fitness Culture in Ghana.

 

 

middle aged man gyming
 

One of the main causative factors to chronic and heart diseases has been recorded to be linked with a lack  of body exercise.

World over, the move to have people stay healthy has been much enormous, talk of health campaigns and the opening of fitness centres.
Ghana is no exception; with a country much booming with urban living and all that comes with modernity, its citizens have also fallen within the risks of health risks.
Statistics show that secular jobs in itself contain over 80 per cent  of the nation's employment rate. 
The stale and idle nature of secular white collar  jobs has brought up the need for there to be a special attention on the  re invigoration of  the physical body.
 

Doctors proffer that at least half an hour of daily exercise is of much importance to the human health and that by this,
the fitness culture is simply the recent modern awareness of the need  and importance of keeping fit physically through rigorous exercising. modern in the sense that it comes at a time when recent hikes in death rates are being, by medical doctors, attributed to unfit bodies lacking the magic of exercising; a time when  the idle nature of white collar jobs has eaten up over 80% of the nation's employment.
 

But whether or not this culture(the fitness culture) is catching up with the entirety of Ghanaians, especially those within the urban frame, happens to be a question worth answering.
Today tens and hundreds of men, women and children; both old and young are getting fit. High streets at dawn no longer taken over by dogs but by the trots and pants of persons exercising. these exercises spin from early morning treks and jogs to all-day-through gyming. 

 

The campaign for fitness has eaten almost all fibres of the Ghanaian society as even determinants for High Public Office Jobs are etched on how fit one is and always will be.

But in all, if one should fall for the evolution and introduction of any culture, it should be the FITNESS CULTURE here in the Ghanaian society. It has probably, come to stay.

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