JOHANNESBURG - Chronic kidney disease is a big problem, affecting one in ten people.
Kidney Awareness Week is observed in September.
Dietitian Zarina Ebrahim from the Association for Dietetics in SA warns that obesity is a major factor in this health problem.
It not only leads to chronic kidney disease but also causes other serious illnesses.
"Obesity is a major factor and within South Africa we have almost half of our population being obese so about 50 percent of our population.
"Predominantly females about 68 percent are females are overweight and obese and 31 percent of males are overweight and obese," she said.
"Obesity also contributes to a lot of other diseases, so definitely obesity is a major factor and we are one of the countries that has prevalence of obesity in the world so I think we are about a third in the world so it’s a huge problem.”