Lifestyle Diseases: Consequences, Characteristics, Causes and Control

Abstract

NCDs are caused, to a massive extent, by four behavioural risk factors: tobacco use, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and harmful use of alcohol. According to WHO, low-and middle-income countries and the poorer people in all countries are the worst affected by deaths due to NCDs. It is a vicious cycle of risk where the poor are increasingly exposed to behavioural risk factors for NCDs and, in turn, such diseases may play a significant role in driving people and their families towards poverty. It starts from an individual and eventually affects entire countries. A country like India, for example, was slated for an economic loss of more than $236 million in 2015, on account of unhealthy lifestyles and faulty diet. 4 That is why in order to tackle the global impact of NCDs, it has to be aggressively confronted in the most affected areas and communities.