Unhealthy lifestyles killing Barbadians

“We eat nuff and we lazy!” 

 

This was the exclamation made by Dr. Alert on Tuesday evening as he gave the featured address on the topic, “What is Killing Barbadians” for Pharmacy Week at the Savannah Hotel. 

 

The doctor revealed to those gathered the many concerning statistics, which predispose Barbadians to the primary causes of death on the island – these are Heart Disease, Cancers, Diabetes Mellitus and Strokes.

 

According to him, 60-80 per cent of Barbadians end up with one or more of these diseases due to their genetics, however, the environment plays a bigger part. Pointing to ‘body size’, the combination of the environment and genetics, Dr. Alert stated that many people are obese and notice is only taken of the unhealthy lifestyle after it has led to one of the aforementioned medical conditions.

 

Not only do Barbadians over-eat and are too inactive, but according to the doctor, there is an abundance of sugary and salty foods being consumed as 90 per cent of Barbadians reported not consuming enough fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. Moreover, in 2002, 31 per cent of the population was reported as having a sedentary lifestyle and that increased by 20 per cent in 2007.

 

Nevertheless, such statistics are not reserved for adults alone. Dr. Alert stated that 40 per cent of children in school are “too big”, while 31.5 per cent of them are overweight and 14.4 per cent of them are obese. This, he said, makes for more money to be spent on a failing free healthcare system as the matters will get worse when these children become adults. To this end, Dr. Alert stated that worthy consideration should be made to either privatizing some healthcare services or having persons generally pay for their own unhealthy lifestyles.

 

In Barbados, 411 heart attacks and 584 strokes occur annually. That translates to approximately one heart attack a day and three strokes every two days. Given this, Dr. Alert is calling for Barbadians to practice disease prevention by adopting healthier lifestyles. Added to that, he noted that Heads of CARICOM for 35 years have been stressing the urgent need to look at these diseases which plague the Caribbean and, to date, nothing has happened. Therefore, the rightful responsibility, he said, belongs to each person to live better lifestyles.

 

Lastly, Dr. Alert made mention of new anti-obesity drugs which can be used to treat, control or prevent other illnesses such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, some cancers and diabetes. This, Dr. Alert explained, would allow patients the freedom not to take eight different types of medications that can be all consolidated. This venture is a costly one, but he believes that even if it is not made free to the public, it will aid Barbados in alleviating the problem of obesity.