Ogweno Stephen recently got featured by The Star newspaper where his journey from living with obesity to becoming a global health advocate for non-communicable diseases was featured. The Star newspaper is one of the top 5 biggest newspapers locally and through this feature, ogweno’s story was able to inspire millions of Kenyans and educate them on non-communicable diseases.
Here is the first Part of the story.
Born 26 years ago with childhood obesity, Stephen Ogweno, one of the pioneering global health practitioners in the country, says his life growing up was sad.
Over the years of hard living and surviving on the streets of Kisumu city where he was brought up, Ogweno would end up developing other complications that arose from childhood obesity including gastrointestinal reflux disorder and oral health challenges. Obesity is among the most prevalent non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Kenya.
NCDs are diseases that do not transfer from one person to the other including diseases like cancer, diabetes, obesity, and hypertension just to mention a few.These diseases are the leading killer diseases in the world and in Kenya, they account for over 55 per cent of hospital admissions.
Ogweno says these challenges coupled with the fact that he came from a low-income family made it hard for him to access the relevant health services.“My younger years were tough but I had to keep moving because I knew things would get better along the way. But living with obesity as a child is no walk in the park,” he says.
Read the full feature on the link below: https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/big-read/2022-08-05-from-victim-of-childhood-obesity-to-global-health-advocate-trailblazer/
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STEPHEN OGWENO 