EDITORIAL: For the health of our people

Food is important. It is food that determines our physical and mental health. Healthy food is even more vital, as it provides our bodies with the nutrients and energy we need to grow and develop, and more significantly to be healthy. So it stands to reason, if you eat unhealthy food, you will be unhealthy.

The fact is that much of what we eat is responsible for the growing number of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) being acquired – not just here in Barbados, but worldwide, as a lot of the food we consume does not have any nutritional value. These NCDs are shortening our life expectancy and it is reported that the four major NCDs – cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes, account for 80 percent of all premature NCD-related deaths.

However, preventing NCDs, or controlling them, is not just an individual’s responsibility, but the State and the private sector also have roles to play, ensuring that the requisite environment is recreated for persons to be healthy. The unfortunate reality is that many of us are choosing unhealthy food options because they are readily available and inexpensive. It is cheaper to buy pasta, canned products and sugar-laden beverages, than it is to buy fruits and vegetables, and it is easier to frequent fast-food restaurants than it is to actually cook meals at home and these realities have contributed to the growing incidence of obesity in our country.

Obesity figures worldwide are on the rise, and there is even more concern about childhood obesity as it is these young people that are our future leaders. It seems therefore that, now more than ever, countries in general must promote nutrition policies to help establish healthier environments for citizens.

Certainly we support the call made by the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, for Caribbean governments to ban the sale and marketing of sugar-sweetened beverages; taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages and to have front-of-package nutrition warning labels, to help protect the health of our region’s children.

The latter measure is one that may encounter the most difficulty, as there are still so many food products manufactured in the region and imported, which do not even carry the standard nutritional labelling and so you cannot tell the serving size, how many calories or the fat, salt, sugar or cholesterol content. Why is this? It is not mandatory. Added to that, there are even some product labels that are not written in English, yet those products are allowed to make their way onto the shelves.

Then we have healthcare leaders saying that we need to watch what we eat. But how can we, if we do not know the nutritional value of a lot of what we consume? Certainly this deserves urgent attention from the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Barbados National Standards Institution and the Department of Commerce, and if it calls for legislation, then create it, because nutritional labels that are easy to see and read, should be as routine as including the ingredient lists on food packages. Likewise, fast food establishments and restaurants should also be made to provide nutritional information either on the products, in-store, or on their websites. This may be costly for businesses, but could go a long way in helping to promote good eating habits.

Policymakers must recognise the duty they have to protect the people. Understandably, they may want to strike the right balance between the health of the nation and the wealth of the private sector that produces or imports the food and employs people. But remember, the wealth of the private sector and the nation as a whole, depends on the health of the people.