Features
From fufu to fast food: Ghana is eating faster and getting sicker
At 6:30 a.m. in Accra, a young office worker scrolls through her phone, ordering fried rice and chicken to arrive before traffic thickens. Across town, a trotro driver grabs a sugary drink and pastry at a roadside stop.
In a nearby school, children line up for fried snacks at break time. None of these moments feels extraordinary.
Yet together they capture a quiet revolution in Ghana’s food system — what public health experts call the nutrition transition: the shift from traditional, minimally processed diets to meals dominated by convenience foods, refined carbohydrates, added sugar, and ultra-processed products. This shift is reflected in Ghana’s own health data.
According to the WHO Ghana STEPwise Survey (2023), approximately 20.9 per cent of adults are overweight and 13.4 per cent are obese, with obesity prevalence in urban areas nearly twice that of rural populations (WHO, 2023).
The same survey estimates that about 19–20 per cent of adults aged 18–69 have raised blood pressure, meaning roughly one in five Ghanaian adults lives with hypertension (WHO, 2023).
Furthermore, the Ghana Health Service Annual Health Sector Performance Reports consistently rank hypertension among the top causes of adult outpatient department (OPD) attendance nationwide, with diabetes also listed among the leading chronic conditions managed at district and regional facilities (GHS, 2022; GHS, 2023).
These trends are visible in workplaces, classrooms, and clinics where front-line health workers now manage far more cases of diet-related chronic diseases than they did a decade ago.
These patterns do not emerge by accident, rather, they are driven by deeper structural changes in how Ghanaians live and eat. The most visible driver is urbanisation and time poverty.
Traditional meals such as banku with okro stew, fufu with light soup, apapransa, yam with kontomire often require time, planning, and space. Urban life strips those away.
Long commutes, irregular work hours, and crowded living conditions make “cook from scratch” a luxury for many. In that setting, convenience becomes a survival strategy, not indulgence.
At the same time, economic pressure reinforces this dependence on convenience.
When food prices rise, households prioritise what is filling and affordable. Energy-dense foods rich in oil, refined flour, and sugar deliver many calories at a low price, even when they deliver fewer vitamins, minerals, and fibre.
This is why Ghana can face a “double burden”: overweight and obesity alongside micronutrient deficiencies, sometimes within the same household. (WHO CDN) Moreover, these structural forces are especially powerful in shaping children’s habits. The next, is the children’s food environment -the most decisive battleground. Children learn taste, habit, and “normal” from what surrounds them.
When the school perimeter is saturated with sugary drinks, pastries, and fried snacks, and when advertising links these items to fun and success, we are programming future disease.
Ghana’s nutrition transition becomes self-reinforcing: the earlier unhealthy habits begin, the harder they are to reverse. And then there is the digital accelerator: delivery platforms and algorithmic convenience.
Apps do not merely respond to demand; they shape it -highlighting what sells quickly and consistently. If “popular” means sugary drinks and fried meals, those become the default. The transition from mortar-and-pestle to mobile apps is not just cultural. It is commercial. As a result of these interconnected drivers, the consequences are becoming increasingly visible.
The downstream effects are no longer theoretical
Ghana’s NCD burden is rising, and risk factors are showing up earlier in life. The 2023 STEPS report indicates that raised blood pressure (hypertension) is common among adults, with prevalence estimates around 19.6 per cent in the 18–69 age group. (WHO File Repository)
Meanwhile, data from Ghana’s population surveys show worrying patterns in weight trends. Analyses of the 2022 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey report substantial levels of overweight and obesity among women of reproductive age (commonly reported figures include about 28 per cent overweight and 22 per cent obesity in women).
These are not just statistics; they translate into strokes, kidney disease, diabetic complications, pregnancy risks, and lost productivity. The economic implications are brutal. Unlike many infectious diseases, chronic diseases require lifelong management.
That means repeated clinic visits, medicines, lab tests, dietary adjustments, and time off work. Families pay out of pocket; health systems stretch; national productivity suffers. Prevention is not merely healthier -it is cheaper.
Therefore, confronting these challenges requires more than individual willpower: it requires coordinated policy. Ghana doesn’t need to abandon tradition. We need to modernise protection.
The solution is not to romanticise the past or shame people for buying what they can afford. Ghana needs a modern public health response that matches a modern food environment — practical, enforceable, and pro-family.
Steps Ghana can take now
First, protection must begin where habits are formed: in schools. The Ghana Education Service (GES), district assemblies, and PTAs should implement clear, enforceable standards for school canteens and vendors by limiting sugar-sweetened beverages, requiring healthier snack options, and ensuring access to clean drinking water.
When children encounter nourishing foods daily, healthy preferences are built early.
However, safeguarding schools alone is not enough. If children leave a protected school environment only to face aggressive marketing elsewhere, progress will be undermined. Therefore, the next step must be to strengthen regulation of unhealthy food advertising.
The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) already has guidance on food advertising, but enforcement and child-specific protections require strengthening.
Restricting the promotion of high-sugar, high-salt, and high-fat products during children’s programming and in and around schools -an approach advocated by organisations such as Meals4NCDs- would reinforce school-based protections.
At the same time, broader consumer empowerment is essential. Even with marketing controls in place, households need clear information to make informed choices.
Strengthening front-of-pack labelling through the Food and Drugs Authority using simple warning labels or traffic-light systems-would allow busy shoppers to quickly identify products high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat.
Yet information alone is insufficient if healthy options remain physically inaccessible. This is where urban planning becomes critical.
District assemblies can support fresh produce markets, promote safe walking spaces, and regulate the clustering of junk food outlets near schools, thereby reshaping neighbourhood food environments to support healthier decisions.
The fork is in our hands -but the system holds the plate. When the easiest foods are the least healthy, disease follows. We still have a window to act.
Our food culture is rich, diverse, and worth preserving -not as nostalgia, but as a living resource for health.
The question is whether policy, planning, and public health will move fast enough to protect families in a fast-changing food system. Because what Ghana eats today is quietly shaping how the nation will live tomorrow.
By Agyemfrah Rachel Akonnobea
This week I have a very strong desire to put on my Apostolic Cap and talk about the power available to children of God which we can utilise to generate positive outcomes, in our lives.
There is a phrase in the Bible that if Christians meditate on, can immensely transform their lives. In Matthew 28:6 there is a phrase “… as he said…” according to the King James Version.
Thus phrase forms part of a statement declared by an angel of God to two women who were disciples of Jesus who had gone to his tomb early in the morning on the third day after his death.
According to the Biblical account, the stone covering the entrance of the tomb had been rolled away and an Angel was sitting on it and he made the statement to the effect that the Jesus they are seeking is not there and that he had risen, as he said before his death.
His resurrection affirmed the authenticity and dependability of the word of Jesus and therefore the word of God.
Christianity has to do with faith in the word of God. Pastor Mensa Otabil said if we view Christianity as an inside out view, you would go inside to operate the power that is in you.
As a Christian, the spirit of God and therefore the power of God, dwells in you. Anyone who is aware of this truth, does not go around seeking to have a so called powerful person resolve his or her spiritual issues.
Most Christians who move from prophet to prophet, do not believe that the spirit of God which operates in a Pastor or Prophet, is the same spirit that dwells in him or her.
In fact , that Christian may be more ‘powerful’ than the Prophet or Pastor he is going to for prayers because he is living a holy life, which is pleasing to God, for God is no respecter of persons according to Acts 10:34-35.
God does not give out his spirit in different measures to indwell believers. The spirit of God that dwells in a new convert, is the same spirit that dwells in a Bishop or a Prophet or an Evangelist or an Elder or a Deacon.
All you need to do as a child of God is to believe in the word of God and know that it works and that according to 1 John 4:4 we, Christians, that the Spirit of God dwells in us have overcome the world and Jesus in us, is greater than the Devil who is out in the world, wrecking havoc all around.
If we realise that we have overcome the Devil and everything he controls, then we can believe and act in faith and make declarations and just as Christ declared that he will die and on the third day, he will rise from the dead and it manifested as he said, there shall be a manifestation of our declarations also.
The problem of modern day Christians is that, a lot of them, do not study and meditate on the word of God, so they do not witness the manifestation of the power of God, in their lives.
Such an experience over time, give them the impression that the spirit of God dwells in different dimensions in believers. This then leads them to seek solutions to their challenges from so called powerful men of God.
Some Pastors also fall into this misconception of the measure of the spirit of God in believers. When the size of a Pastor’s church for instance, is not increasing the way he had been praying for self-doubt sometimes begin to set in.
Especially, if he begins to compare his church with that of say a colleague from the same Bible School, then he begins to wonder if there is not a spiritual secret he is not aware of.
This is when, if care is not taken, fellow Pastors who appears to be very successful in the ministry but are using occultic powers, could sway them from the narrow path and get them trapped in the Devil’s clutches and eventually and inevitably, destroy their lives. God bless.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
Introduction
You have been there. Twenty tabs open comparing laptops. A blank page for an email you’ve been “thinking about” for three days. A menu with 30 options and you leave hungry.
This is decision paralysis: the state where the volume of information, options, or perceived stakes prevents you from making a decision at all. It’s not laziness. It’s a cognitive overload response.
In a data-rich environment, it’s becoming the default mode for both individuals and organisations.
This article breaks down why it happens, how it shows up, what it costs, and how to break it.
1. What decision paralysis actually is?
Decision paralysis is a failure of the decision-making system to convert information into action. Psychologists call it ‘analysis paralysis’ or ‘choice overload.’
It has three components:
1. Cognitive overload: Working memory can hold between four to seven chunks of information at once. When you try to track 20 variables, the system freezes.
2. Anticipatory regret: You overestimate the pain of making the wrong choice. The brain avoids the emotional cost by avoiding the choice.
3. Ambiguity aversion: Humans prefer known risks over unknown ones. When outcomes are uncertain, we stall.
The result is not neutral. Not deciding is a decision. It costs time, momentum, and opportunity
2. Why it’s getting worse now
2.1 Infinite options
Amazon has 350 million products. Netflix has 6000+ titles. Dating apps have unlimited profiles. The paradox of choice: more options increase initial satisfaction but decrease final satisfaction and increase regret.
2.2 Information abundance without synthesis
You can find 50 studies on sleep. Each one has caveats, conflicting results, and different methodologies. Without a framework to integrate them, more data creates more confusion, not clarity. This connects directly to the “data-rich, wisdom-poor” problem.
2.3 Reversibility anxiety
In the digital age, most decisions feel permanent. A bad post goes viral. A bad hire is public on LinkedIn. A bad career move is visible. The fear of irreversible error makes people delay.
2.4 Algorithmic mirroring
Platforms show you what you already engage with. This creates an illusion that there’s one ‘best’ option you are missing. You keep searching, convinced the optimal choice is one more scroll away.
3. How it shows up
Personal Level
Cannot pick a career path after six months of ‘research’
Spend two hours choosing a movie and watch nothing
Delay sending an email because it ‘isn’t perfect’
3.1 Organisational level
Teams spend 80 per cent of time in meetings gathering data, 20 per cent deciding
Product teams delay launch waiting for “one more data point”
KPIs multiply but no strategic choice is made
3.2 Common cognitive tells:
Endless comparison tables
Asking for one more opinion
Reframing the problem instead of solving it
Feeling drained after thinking but not acting
By Robert Ekow Grimmond-Thompson
