Heart diseas and Mondesa

When we think of heart disease, we think of heart attacks and strokes – something white people tend to suffer from. We the logo of the heart association on tubs of unsaturated (expensive) margarine, the kind used by white people on television adverts. Indeed, those we consider as white people are often genetically predisposed to suffer from heart disease. In South Africa, for instance, it was found that 1:200 Afrikaaners have a family history of coronary heart disease. However, let us not delude ourselves into thinking that cardiovascular illnesses – a blanket term for several heart diseases – are limited to whites only. The risk factors necessary for the development of cardiovascular illness are a diet high in fat and refined carbohydrates, smoking, alcohol consumption and lack of exercise and these cut across racial lines. A confluence of these risk factors occurs in the township, where people have few dietary options, live amidst substance abuse and rarely have access to recreation facilities for exercise. Therefore, the finding that most deaths due to cardiovascular illness occur in the Kayletchia township of Cape Town and the fewest in the wealthier southern suburbs was not surprising for South Africa. So infact, it is poorest people, who are often black, who are most risk of cardiovascular illness.

It is against this background that the poor community of Mondesa in our very own Swakopmund, Namibia, is loosing an outlet for soccer playing, for recreation, for cardiovascular exercise.

I planned to finish this letter above to The Namibia, but I opted to write an article on chronic diseases instead, where I will tie in this travesty of closing the sports filed.