A LOT is definitely not well in our country Zimbabwe.
Now we are being told that an increasing number of the country’s youths are testing positive for hypertension or high blood pressure, an ailment whereby pressure in one’s blood vessels is too high (140/90 mmHg or higher).
Traditionally, this is a disease common in adults aged 55 and above and is usually associated with extra weight, unhealthy eating habits, consuming too much salt and alcohol, smoking, lack of sleep and stress.
One can only know that they have the disease if they are medically checked, meaning that many hypertension patients could be roaming the country without knowing their status.
What is most disturbing though is the fact that this disease, normally associated with the elderly, is now affecting the youths in a big way. This is happening as everything that can go wrong is going wrong in a country which has been troubled for more than a decade now.
More than half of the youth population is known as drug and alcohol abusers, whose eating and sleeping habits are definitely so disorderly that it makes them the ideal candidates for the hypertension hospital outpatient wards.
But why has things deteriorated to an extent that young men and women are now suffering from ailments not normally associated with their age group?
Obviously our youths are missing something in their development into adulthood to an extent that their lives have become a real mess. In our view, everything is pointing to the country’s relentless bad economic state, which is turning many of our young people into inactive lazybones.
- When an economy betrays its own youths
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As much as some would like to lay the blame on the youths, the state of the economy is turning many of our youths into hypertension patients. What can one expect when unemployment is so high that some university graduate are now making ends meet selling airtime recharge cards on the streets.
While some may quickly dismiss the predicament facing our young population as fallacious, it poses serious challenges ahead for the country whose future development depends on an agile and healthy young population.
Statistics show that nearly 70% of the country’s population are youths below 35 years and it is hair-raising to imagine what the future holds for Zimbabwe when its young brains are being decimated by drugs and hypertension.
We shudder to imagine the state of affairs in five years if the economic situation does not change for the better.
To sum up the gravity of this matter, we recall one Magdany Acosta Gallardo, who was interviewed by the United Nations Children’s Fund in 2020 saying: “Young people not only represent the future of our country, we are one of society’s main agents of change and progress. We have a great effect on economic development too. In this stage of our lives, we build many social relationships and develop a personality that defines us as a new generation. What we do when we become adults depends on how we think and act today.”
So much for our youths, who are currently enduring some of the direst situations to be faced by a generation, betrayed by a poorly performing economy.
