Jakarta City Council's Commission E member, Elva Farhi Qolbina urges Jakarta Provincial Government to be more active in handling obesity issue. According to her, the Jakarta Provincial Government needs to strengthen health infrastructure while increasing public awareness to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

She highlighted the results of a 2021 United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) study, which stated that one of the main causes of obesity in Indonesia is poor diet, where people tend to consume foods and drinks high in fat, sugar, and salt.

"The obesity problem is also related to people's lifestyles . If Jakarta residents continue to exercise less and consume unhealthy foods, obesity rates will continue to rise," she said, Thursday (11/6).

Elva then asked the Jakarta Provincial Government to continue to increase sports facilities in public spaces, including city parks.

"We already have good parks such as Tebet Eco Park and Menteng Park. Hopefully many parks can be equipped with sport facilities to motivate visitors doing exercise," she added.

She also emphasized the importance of equal distribution of sports facilities throughout the Jakarta area.

"Sports fields and arenas are not yet evenly distributed across all regions. Provincial governments need to plan the development of these facilities to ensure the public has adequate access to exercise," she suggested.

Moreover, she also appealed to the Jakarta Provincial Government to intensify healthy lifestyle campaigns. Community health centers can also play an active role by providing obesity prevention services through nutrition education and community sports activities.

As for information, the latest data from the Jakarta Health Agency shows that 579,812 people out of 1,720,658 Free Health Check (CKG) participants have central obesity.

"Around 33.7 percent of residents whose waist circumference was checked had central obesity," stated Agency's Acting Head of Community Health, Sri Puji Wahyuni.