W

ith more and more people dying of non-infectious diseases, Indonesians are now adopting a healthier lifestyle.

More consumers are concerned about the ingredients in their food because a healthy diet can help reduce their risk of developing diseases.

In 2010, the Health Ministry found that Indonesians were increasingly affected by non-communicable diseases, such as high-blood pressure, stroke, cancer, heart problems and diabetes mellitus, than infectious ones.

This led to the government increasing spending on the National Health Insurance (JKN) program that is managed by the Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan).

About 25.8 percent of Indonesia’s population suffer from hypertension that can lead to heart problems. It cost the country Rp 6.9 trillion (US$510 million) in insurance coverage last year, ministry data revealed.

“Almost 90 percent of illnesses that emerge nowadays are caused by lifestyle and environmental behaviors,” the Health Ministry’s public health director general, Anung Sugihantono, said on Friday.

That is why the solution to these problems is to increase people’s understanding and knowledge about living a healthy lifestyle to promote health and prevent diseases, he added.

To improve the health of Indonesians, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo this year launched a Presidential Instruction (Inpres) No.1/2017 on the People’s Healthy Lifestyle Movement (Germas).

Declared at the 52th anniversary of National Health Day (HKN) on Nov. 12 last year, Germas promotes a healthy lifestyle that includes three main focus areas — a balanced diet, routine physical exercises and regular health check-ups.

Pramasyara Prabandari, 38, a housewife from Purwokerto, Central Java, and her family have adopted a healthy lifestyle program for the last three months.

“After a friend of mine died of diabetes four months ago, we said this is it, we have to change our lifestyle,” she said on Friday,

Pramasyara changed her family’s eating habits by adding vegetables and fruit into their diet and eating organic red rice.

Launched on Oct. 30 as part of Germas, the “Ini Isi Piringku” (This Is What’s on My Plate) program promotes a healthy diet, in which people are encouraged to fill half of their plate with vegetables, one-third with side dishes and two-thirds with carbohydrates.

The program replaced the country’s infamous balanced diet campaign called “4 Sehat 5 Sempurna (Four Healthy, Five Perfect),” which urged people eat meals containing carbohydrates, proteins, minerals, vitamins and completing it all by drinking milk for calcium.