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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 6th JULY, 2014
One of our local doctors
returned from
the CARPHA conference in Aruba in April,
nonplussed by the low level of concern over the
rise of childhood obesity in the Caribbean.
Isn’t anyone freaking out? He was discernibly
disturbed by the figures.
He was not the first medic I had heard
complain about complacent responses to the
numerous studies showing that obesity has
plonked itself down as a Caribbean characteristic
and is playing havoc with our lives.
At a function celebrating Sir Frank Worrell
recently, another doctor was venting about
the media’s preference for sensationalism and
unwillingness to give prominence tomedical issues
that were of public importance. He was talking
about the range of chronic non-communicable
diseases—hypertension, diabetes, asthma, cancer,
obesity, cardiovascular ailments leading to heart
attacks—licking up the region in numbers higher
than anywhere else in the world.
We’re doing the research, we’re putting the
results out there, he said, gesturing impatiently
into the night sky, but nobody is taking it on. What
do we have to do to make people realize this is a
very real crisis?
I’d seen the headlines announcing the news, the
study findings, theMinistry of Health’s responses;
they were not gripping, and not one hadmade the
front page or topped the television news headline
acts. Figures alone are just too bland, and every
other day a new study contradicts the last.
Yet this story is a dramatic one, with massive
dire implications for the future of the region—as
massive as the crime bonanza that still runs neck
and neck with politics for first place—and at best
it can only warrant an also-mentioned space in
the news line-ups. Make no mistake, the crime
situation, as bad as it is, has become the most
topical news because of the public space it is
unwisely afforded.
What would it take to raise the public profile
of the real serial killers among us?
Well, for one thing, there was a distinct buzz
when Minister of Health, Dr Fuad Khan, took
it upon himself to lead the way in promoting
healthier lifestyles among the populace. Taking up
office in June 2011, byNovember he was launching
his Fight the Fat campaign as he tried to persuade
the public that our obesity figures would be the
death of us all.
Still, nomatter how he preached, citing figures
from the National Risk Factor Survey in 2011
that locally, more than 60% of all deaths are due
to four major CNCDs: cardiovascular diseases,
cancer, diabetes and strokes and that T&T tops
the region for CNCD deaths, nobody seemed to
be taking it to heart.
Undaunted, he pledged to start a project to
dissuade people from over-eating MSG, salt and
sugar.
In March 2012, a report in the
Trinidad
Guardian
referred to theMinistry of Health’s fight
against obesity and said it would “involve working
with fast-food companies to have more vegetables
on their menu and to decrease salt in the foods
they sell.” Minister Khan was quoted as saying
ENERGY
HEALTH
It’s NOT Guns
Freddy French Fries
is the Big Killer
B y V a n e i s a B a k s h
“Cost of treating
noncommunicable
diseases in developing
countries –
USD 7 trillion
”
World Health Organisation
(WHO)
