How active lifestyles, sports and fitness programs are enabling Arab women to beat obesity, manage weight

Saudi women are stepping up the pace when it comes to personal health, with community-based sports participation increasing rapidly in recent years as a fitness culture takes hold. (AFP)
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Updated 11 August 2022
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How active lifestyles, sports and fitness programs are enabling Arab women to beat obesity, manage weight

  • Article in The Economist attributes obesity among Arab women to social conservatism restricting outdoor exercise
  • Saudi efforts show why such perceptions are outdated as women take charge of their health and lifestyles

JEDDAH: Obesity rates worldwide have been steadily rising over the past half-century, reaching a point at which experts say many nations are way off schedule to meet the World Health Organization’s 2025 global nutrition targets.

Mindful of the pressures that high obesity rates place on local healthcare systems, to the detriment of quality of life, countries such as Saudi Arabia are working hard to promote fitness and challenge people to change their sedentary lifestyles.

According to a recent study by Ohio State University College of Medicine, obesity and the associated health implications cost the Saudi healthcare system $3.8 billion in 2019 alone, equivalent to about 4.3 percent of the Kingdom’s total annual health expenditure.




Keeping weight under control is nevertheless easier said than done in the age of globalization. (AFP)

Excess weight and obesity — defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that can impair health — is not only a concern in the Arab world. More than a billion people worldwide are classified as obese, which means that they have a body mass index (a measure of body fat based on height and weight) of 30 or higher, and the number is rising.

According to the WHO, obesity is more prevalent among women than men, with factors such as sociocultural issues, economics, genetics and biology all contributing factors. Worldwide, obesity affects 15 percent of women and 11 percent of men. In the Middle East and North Africa, this gender gap is even wider, with 26 percent of women classified as obese compared with 16 percent of men.

A recent article published by The Economist attributes the problem in the region to two key factors: Socioeconomics, on the grounds that the cheapest local foods are usually the most unhealthy, such as bread and rice; and culture, on the grounds that pervasive social conservatism in the Arab region can prevent women from participating in outdoor exercise or shedding calories passively in the workplace.

The reality is, of course, more complex than that. The perception of Arab women as mere sedentary housewives appears grossly outdated as women in the region increasingly enter the labor force, take charge of their diets, and seize new opportunities in the worlds of sports and fitness.




Obesity and the associated health implications cost the Saudi healthcare system $3.8 billion in 2019 alone. (AFP)

Keeping body weight under control, in any case, is easier said than done in the age of globalization. Arab countries, too, have experienced significant lifestyle changes and rapid urbanization that have introduced many additional high-fat foods to the market alongside the pre-existing unhealthy eating habits, including the traditionally carbohydrate-rich Arab diet.

Populations of the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, have found themselves at the sharp end of these developments. Notably, obesity levels have soared in recent decades owing to a mix of unhealthy eating, inactivity and keeping “fat in fashion” — a stereotype associated with Gulf nationals on account of their perceived affluence.

Globally, the perception of obesity varies widely. In many high-income and, increasingly, middle-income countries, weight gain carries a social stigma that fuels a perception of individual weakness that undermines the support for comprehensive prevention, treatment and management measures.

Different ideals associated with weight and body shape can found in various cultures. Specific cultural pressures to be tall and thin are postulated to cause people to misreport their height and body weight in an attempt to appear what is deemed more socially popular and desirable.

A similar situation exists in some places in terms of attitudes to excess weight. Many African and Polynesian, and some Arab, cultures associate overweight women with affluence, health, strength and fertility. In the Gulf region at least, however, being fat is certainly no longer in fashion.

Sulafa Kurdi, a photographer and cafe owner, has been overweight almost all of her life. In August 2020, she took the first steps on a nearly two-year journey to get fit and healthy by signing up with a gym. She chose Sweat Army in Jeddah and began her transformation.


“I was waiting for the right time to make the move and turn my life around,” she told Arab News. “Breaking down that wall was tough but, with the support I received from my coach, the journey was what I needed. I wanted to lose weight the healthy way, the right way and the difficult way.

“Within three months of signing up, I found the discipline to maintain a healthy lifestyle that I still stick to as best as I can. Yes, we all fall off the wagon and feel sluggish at times. With the right support, I’ve managed to get back again and move, breaking my own records.”

FASTFACTS

• Obesity is closely linked to chronic health problems, including cardiovascular disease and cancer.

• Excess weight and the associated health implications cost the Saudi health system $3.8bn in 2019.

Indeed, contrary to the assertions in The Economist’s article, anecdotal evidence suggests more and more women in the Arab world are taking control of their physical lives and setting off on a journey to improved their fitness. This has in turn motivated many to pursue their dreams of becoming professional athletes.

Studies have found that engagement in sports and physical activity has been lower among women than men. Now various government-led and private programs are providing women and girls with access to sports facilities, encouraging them to become athletes and even role models for younger generations.

This has challenged outdated stereotypes about women in Saudi Arabia and the wider Arab region and the incorrect notions about social conservatism preventing them from going outdoors both to exercise and to take part in organized sports.

Dubbed “Cleopatra Squash,” Egyptian Nuran Johar has won padel tournaments such as the England Open Junior Championship five times. Meanwhile, Ulfah Alkaabi, one of the UAE’s top padel players, has been making her mark on the court.

Halfway around the world, Saudi Arabia’s female national football team won a silver medal at the Special Olympics Unified Cup in Detroit, Michigan this month.

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Although Saudi sprinter and first-time Olympian Yasmeen Al-Dabbagh fell short in her first race in Tokyo 2020, she has set her sights on bringing home a medal from the next Games in Paris in 2024.

By all accounts, women’s participation in sports and fitness boils down to a supportive community. In the Kingdom, the Sports For All Federation has been building community-driven programs to improve overall health through community sports programs, a powerful tool to create a healthy society in line with the Vision 2030 Quality of Life objectives.
 




The Saudi female athletes leading the way. 

SFA says its programs and initiatives are created based on a community’s specific needs and what motivates them, and can be incorporated easily into their daily routines such as walking, running, cycling and other activities. It says the number of female participants in community sports has increased dramatically.

“Since 2018, we’ve seen the numbers reflected across our programs,” an SFA spokesperson told Arab News. “SFA wants to provide women with the right programs and female-driven initiatives to encourage them to go further.

“We provided a special course for ladies in our Spartan race, there was an area for women at SandClash to compete, and the same goes for our Neighborhood Clubs across the Kingdom for women who prefer to have their own spaces.




Women’s participation in sports and fitness boils down to a supportive community. (AFP)

“SFA has also hosted the Global Goals World Cup, a five-a-side women’s football tournament, and is the first country to add basketball to the games. One of the main objectives of SFA is to enable them, provide them with access to facilities, motivate them and feel that they are part of the community.”

Underscoring the importance of community-based physical activity programs, Haya Sawan, a fitness trainer and the owner of SheFit Gym in Jeddah, told Arab News that having such programs is helping to build a strong fitness culture among women.

“There’s been a huge jump in the past five years and you can see more people engaged in some sort of physical activity than ever before. It’s not just a matter of gyms opening, it’s more about changing the mindset and changing the lifestyle,” said Sawan.

“The region’s climate and unique environment restrict us from walking for miles, so we need to put in extra effort just to stay active all day. We utilize the space that we have and create programs fitting for the space, and using vast spaces such as malls and outdoor pathways designated for walking or jogging is a great way to engage the public.




The perception of Arab women as mere sedentary housewives appears grossly outdated. (AFP)

“Initiatives such as the ones launched by SFA where they cooperated with malls makes it so much easier for people to be active. It’s accessible and you can count your steps. It’s a small gesture that makes a difference in the long run.”

That said, personal motivation remains an integral part of any fitness journey, and changing perceptions among Arab women — and wider society — about their role, status and body autonomy no doubt has a part to play.

“I am a strong believer that your thoughts can really control your life,” said Sawan. “A positive mindset will always believe that there’s room for improvement, and look at challenges as a source of motivation to overcome, rather than challenges that would stop you from moving forward. Everything changes.”


Father in intensive care after nine children killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

Hamdi Al-Najjar lies in a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit at Nasser Hospital after being injured in the same strike.
Updated 58 min 44 sec ago
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Father in intensive care after nine children killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

  • Hamdi Al-Najjar, himself a doctor, was at home in Khan Younis with his 10 children when an Israeli air strike occurred, killing all but one of them

GAZA/CAIRO: The father of nine children killed in an Israeli military strike in Gaza over the weekend remains in intensive care, said a doctor on Sunday at the hospital treating him.
Hamdi Al-Najjar, himself a doctor, was at home in Khan Younis with his 10 children when an Israeli air strike occurred, killing all but one of them. He was rushed to the nearby Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza where he is being treated for his injuries.
Abdul Aziz Al-Farra, a thoracic surgeon, said Najjar had undergone two operations to stop bleeding in his abdomen and chest and that he sustained other wounds including to his head.
“May God heal him and help him,” Farra said, speaking by the bedside of an intubated and heavily bandaged Najjar.
The Israeli military has confirmed it conducted an air strike on Khan Younis on Friday but said it was targeting suspects in a structure that was close to Israeli soldiers.
The military is looking into claims that “uninvolved civilians” were killed, it said, adding that the military had evacuated civilians from the area before the operation began.
According to medical officials in Gaza, the nine children were aged between one and 12 years old. The child that survived, a boy, is in a serious but stable condition, the hospital has said.
Najjar’s wife, Alaa, also a doctor, was not at home at the time of the strike. She was treating Palestinians injured in Israel’s more than 20-month war in Gaza against Hamas in the same hospital where her husband and son are receiving care.
“She went to her house and saw her children burned, may God help her,” said Tahani Yahya Al-Najjar of her sister-in-law.
“With everything we are going through only God gives us strength.”
Tahani visited her brother in hospital on Sunday, whispering to him that she was there: “You are okay, this will pass.”
On Saturday, Ali Al-Najjar said that he rushed to his brother’s house after the strike, which had sparked a fire that threatened to collapse the home, and searched through the rubble. “We started pulling out charred bodies,” he said.
In its statement about the air strike, the Israeli military said Khan Younis was a “dangerous war zone.”
Practically all of Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians have been displaced after more than 20 months of war.
The war erupted when Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, killing around 1,200, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 more.
The retaliatory campaign, that Israel has said is aimed at uprooting Hamas and securing the release of the hostages, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, Gazan health officials say.
Most of them are civilians, including more than 16,500 children under the age of 18, according to Gaza’s health ministry.


Iraq’s water reserves lowest in 80 years: official

Updated 25 May 2025
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Iraq’s water reserves lowest in 80 years: official

  • Iraqi spokesperson of the Water Resources Ministry Khaled Shamal says the country hasn't seen such a low reserve in 80 years
  • Iraq is considered by the United Nations to be one of the five most impacted countries by climate change

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s water reserves are at their lowest in 80 years after a dry rainy season, a government official said Sunday, as its share from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers shrinks.
Water is a major issue in the country of 46 million people undergoing a serious environmental crisis because of climate change, drought, rising temperatures and declining rainfall.
Authorities also blame upstream dams built in neighboring Iran and Turkiye for dramatically lowering the flow of the once-mighty Tigris and Euphrates, which have irrigated Iraq for millennia.
“The summer season should begin with at least 18 billion cubic meters... yet we only have about 10 billion cubic meters,” water resources ministry spokesperson Khaled Shamal told AFP.
“Last year our strategic reserves were better. It was double what we have now,” Shamal said.
“We haven’t seen such a low reserve in 80 years,” he added, saying this was mostly due to the reduced flow from the two rivers.
Iraq currently receives less than 40 percent of its share from the Tigris and Euphrates, according to Shamal.
He said sparse rainfall this winter and low water levels from melting snow has worsened the situation in Iraq, considered by the United Nations to be one of the five countries most vulnerable to some impacts of climate change.
Water shortages have forced many farmers in Iraq to abandon the land, and authorities have drastically reduced farming activity to ensure sufficient supplies of drinking water.
Agricultural planning in Iraq always depends on water, and this year it aims to preserve “green spaces and productive areas” amounting to more than 1.5 million Iraqi dunams (375,000 hectares), said Shamal.
Last year, authorities allowed farmers to cultivate 2.5 million dunams of corn, rice, and orchards, according to the water ministry.
Water has been a source of tension between Iraq and Turkiye, which has urged Baghdad to adopt efficient water management plans.
In 2024, Iraq and Turkiye signed a 10-year “framework agreement,” mostly to invest in projects to ensure better water resources management.


Israeli strikes kill 23 in Gaza, including a journalist and rescue service official

Updated 25 May 2025
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Israeli strikes kill 23 in Gaza, including a journalist and rescue service official

  • Israeli fire kills at least 23 people in Gaza
  • Israel controls 77 percent of Gaza Strip, Hamas media office says

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including a local journalist and a senior rescue service official, local health authorities said.
The latest deaths in the Israeli campaign resulted from separate Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
In Jabalia, they said local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday.
Another airstrike in Nuseirat killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory’s civil emergency service, and his wife in their house, medics added.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said that Abu Warda’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to 220.
In a separate statement, the media office said Israeli forces were in control of 77 percent of the Gaza Strip, either through ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardment that keeps residents away from their homes.
The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said in separate statements on Sunday that fighters carried out several ambushes and attacks using bombs and anti-tank rockets against Israeli forces operating in several areas across Gaza.
On Friday the Israeli military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people by Israeli tallies with 251 hostages abducted into Gaza.
The conflict has killed more than 53,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. Aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.


Israeli military says it intercepted missile from Yemen

Updated 25 May 2025
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Israeli military says it intercepted missile from Yemen

  • Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen toward Israel.
Sirens sounded in several areas in the country, the Israeli military said earlier.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Most of the group’s missile have been intercepted or have fallen short.
The Houthis did not immediately comment on the latest missile launch.


Syria to help locate missing Americans

Updated 25 May 2025
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Syria to help locate missing Americans

DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities have agreed to help the United States locate and return Americans who went missing in the war-torn country, a US envoy said on Sunday.
“The new Syrian government has agreed to assist the USA in locating and returning USA citizens or their remains. The families of Austin Tice, Majd Kamalmaz, and Kayla Mueller must have closure,” US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack wrote on X.