Consumption of healthy foods still key during pandemic

THE Healthy Caribbean Coalition is issuing a reminder that the nation’s citizens still need to consume healthy foods, inclusive of fruits and vegetables, during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The matter was brought into focus by Maisha Hutton, Executive Director of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC).

Hutton noted that just recently, the HCC launched a COVID-19 Communication Strategy to guide the organisation’s advocacy and communication during the COVID-19 pandemic and one of the five objectives of this strategy focuses on promoting access to, as well as ensuring the consumption of, healthy foods. This is key, since both the HCC and the OECS have agreed that the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to undermine the gains made in recent years in the prevention and control of diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs), as well as the maintenance of good health among people living with NCDs.

Just recently, the two entities released a joint statement on “Strengthening Food and Nutrition Security in the Caribbean: A Legacy Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic”, and one key area of focus is on putting together an “Essential Basket of Food Items”, which would include fruits and vegetables.

“We know that many people are stocking up on non-perishables, which tend to be the overly ultra-processed foods, which are not good for our immune system. So the OECS is coming up with an Essential Basket of Healthy Items to assist Government, the private sector and civil society, in identifying packages of food for the most vulnerable. (We acknowledge that) people are trying to move quickly to respond to an urgent need, but there needs to be some sort of guidance,” Hutton told The Barbados Advocate.

“We need to have healthy food baskets, so that we are not creating a situation in which people are more vulnerable to COVID infections because they are eating processed, unhealthy foods,” she further remarked.

Weighing in on the discussion, President of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, Sir Trevor Hassell, stressed the need for healthy eating as well, especially for those battling NCDs and for those in high risk groups.

“I think it is very clear that those elderly persons with chronic diseases are at particular risk of having an undesirable outcome, if they contract COVID-19. One of the risk factors that contribute to chronic diseases is unhealthy eating; unhealthy eating that leads to overweight and obesity and unhealthy eating that predisposes really to heart disease, and so what is important during this period, is for us to try not only to control the chronic diseases well, but also to seek to build up our immune system by eating healthily,” Sir Trevor noted.

“The fact of the matter is that we need to be eating healthy at all times, whether or not we’ve got a pandemic that’s present. And the issue that we have addressed on many occasions is, that in Barbados and in the Caribbean, we have moved away from healthy eating such as fruits and vegetables and what we refer to as ground provisions and we have moved to a situation quite frankly, where we consume large amounts of unhealthy fat foods or quick serving foods,” he told this newspaper.

He therefore placed on record his support for the OECS’ Health Basket of Food Items, while pointing as well to the HCC’s call for fiscal policies that make the healthier eating choice, the easier and more affordable one.