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Issue 232, Friday 29 August 2008 - 14 Sha'ban 1423

Healthy Ramadan campaign

By Abdul Adil

Last Wednesday, British Heart Foundation (BHF) launched its annual ‘Healthy Ramadan Campaign’ to encourage Muslims to stop smoking during Ramadan. Over 130 imams and members of mosque committees attended a one day training seminar for promoting health during Ramadan. “There is no better time to quit smoking than during Ramadan,” Lord Ahmed said during the launch.
He said that as one stops smoking from dawn to sunset, “it would be easy to give up smoking after iftar (breaking the fast). “I gave up smoking four year ago during Ramadan.” He also urged to eat healthy food during iftar.
“This year’s campaign is to build on the success of the previous ‘Smoke Free Ramadan’ activities, by focussing on a range of healthy living messages including stopping smoking for good in Ramadan,” said BHF Ethnic Strategy Coordinator, Qaim Zaidi.
Chief Executive of BHF, Peter Hollins, launching the campaign said this year the Ramadan campaign, other than healthy living messages, is different.
They are training the imams about risk factors in details (smoking, diet, physical inactivity), role of imams in promoting health, their role in prevention of hear disease, how they should promote health in their mosque and emergency life support training.
Smoking is none of the major risk factors for coronary heart disease. According to British Heart Foundation, around 30,000 smokers have fatal heart attacks each year in the UK. 1 in 5 deaths from coronary heart disease is associated with smoking. However, rate of smoking in the Bangladeshi community is very high (40%).
There is strong evidence, according to Zaidi, that Muslim communities are disproportionately affected by coronary hear disease.