Building a lifestyle, not just a race

Since the end of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, a dis­tinct week­end rit­u­al has tak­en hold across Trinidad and To­ba­go. From Ari­ma to Cou­va to the board­walk in Ch­aguara­mas and oth­er parts of Trinidad, the ex­plo­sion of 5K road races has be­come a sta­ple of lo­cal fit­ness cul­ture. Dri­ven by cor­po­rate spon­sor­ships, so­cial and health is­sues, and the dopamine hit of a fin­ish­er’s medal, these events have gal­va­nized thou­sands of cit­i­zens to step out and move. This thriv­ing race scene demon­strates a pow­er­ful, col­lec­tive de­sire for well­ness across our twin-is­land re­pub­lic. Yet, look past the en­er­gy of race-day self­ies, and a stark para­dox emerges: our na­tion­al health met­rics for Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases are wor­ry­ing.

Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) da­ta re­veal that near­ly two-thirds of our adult pop­u­la­tion is over­weight or obese. The gen­der and age dis­par­i­ties are dev­as­tat­ing: Caribbean women face up to three times the odds of obe­si­ty com­pared to men, and lo­cal child­hood obe­si­ty has surged by over 300% in re­cent gen­er­a­tions—with near­ly one in four school-aged chil­dren now fac­ing meta­bol­ic risks. Non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs) like Type 2 di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion still claim over 80% of do­mes­tic deaths an­nu­al­ly.

How do we rec­on­cile a boom­ing race cul­ture with a wors­en­ing health­care cri­sis? The un­com­fort­able truth is that while the 5K trend is a fan­tas­tic en­try point, it of­ten op­er­ates as an in­ter­mit­tent per­for­mance for the ca­su­al par­tic­i­pant. While it has giv­en rise to struc­tured run­ning clubs, cor­po­rate-spon­sored teams, and school teams, these hy­per-fo­cused groups rep­re­sent the ac­tive mi­nor­i­ty. Out­side of these or­ga­nized bub­bles, how do we as­cer­tain whether the ca­su­al, tran­sient par­tic­i­pant has trans­lat­ed that week­end mo­men­tum in­to a holis­tic, dai­ly healthy lifestyle? For many, par­tic­i­pat­ing once a month acts mere­ly as a tem­po­rary lifestyle fix rather than a sus­tain­able habit.

Worse yet, the price of en­try cre­ates a stark so­cio-eco­nom­ic di­vide. For work­ing-class in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies af­fect­ed by the ris­ing cost of liv­ing, the reg­u­lar 5K reg­is­tra­tion fees are en­tire­ly pro­hib­i­tive. For in­stance, at $150.00 per race, par­tic­i­pat­ing in 5 races to­tals $750.00 per per­son. This cost in­creas­es with each ad­di­tion­al race if oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers are in­clud­ed. On the oth­er hand, the greater pur­chas­ing pow­er of the mid­dle and up­per class­es en­ables them to en­ter more races. If the pop­u­la­tion is to de­vel­op a true cul­ture of well-be­ing, well­ness can­not be con­fined be­hind a pay­wall of reg­is­tra­tion desks and pro­mo­tion­al give­aways. We must bridge the gap so that a healthy lifestyle is ac­ces­si­ble to every­one, re­gard­less of in­come.

A com­pre­hen­sive healthy cul­ture must look be­yond the com­mer­cial week­end spec­ta­cle and ground it­self in or­gan­ic, self-di­rect­ed health vol­un­tarism. This ethos aligns per­fect­ly with glob­al move­ments like the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion’s (WHO) “Let’s Move” ini­tia­tive, cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly on June 23rd for Olympic Day. The WHO’s mes­sage is sim­ple: every­day phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty must be ac­ces­si­ble to all, em­pha­siz­ing that a healthy na­tion is built on con­sis­tent, dai­ly move­ment rather than iso­lat­ed events.

There are glob­al and lo­cal ex­am­ples of peo­ple be­ing in­ex­pen­sive­ly ac­tive. In Japan, Ra­jio Taisō (Ra­dio Cal­is­then­ics) is a 3-6-minute rhyth­mic ex­er­cise broad­cast dai­ly on Japan­ese pub­lic ra­dio fo­cus­ing on gen­tle cal­is­then­ics, stretch­ing, and deep breath­ing to pro­mote health and com­mu­ni­ty. The ex­er­cis­es are prac­ticed by work­ers, se­niors, and chil­dren. Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, a pletho­ra of ex­er­cise videos on YouTube and oth­er plat­forms were pop­u­lar ways for peo­ple iso­lat­ed from each oth­er to work out to­geth­er while, im­por­tant­ly, hav­ing tonnes of fun. In the lead-up to car­ni­val, there are usu­al­ly sev­er­al pub­lic burnout ses­sions for mas­quer­aders and health en­thu­si­asts.

The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs [MSYA] and SPORTT have made the once-re­strict­ed na­tion­al sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties at Ato Boldon, Man­nie Ramjohn, and the Lar­ry Gomes sta­dia in Trinidad ac­ces­si­ble to the gen­er­al pub­lic for ex­er­cise. While tour­ing the sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties used for the 1994 Win­ter Olympics in Lille­ham­mer, Nor­way, last week, it was re­vealed that one of the lega­cy fea­tures was en­cour­ag­ing the gen­er­al pub­lic to use the fa­cil­i­ties freely when they were not booked. Fur­ther­more, the fa­cil­i­ties al­so formed part of Lille­ham­mer’s tourist ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Min­istry of Health, the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions [re­gard­less of which po­lit­i­cal par­ty has con­trol], and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice must col­lab­o­rate to cre­ate safe, us­able recre­ation grounds. For in­stance, the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, San Fer­nan­do, or Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions must en­sure that com­mu­ni­ty recre­ation grounds are strict­ly pruned, walk­ing paths and pavil­ions are kept clean, and se­cu­ri­ty is man­aged to clear out “limers” or in­di­vid­u­als who be­lieve it’s their right to taunt and heck­le per­sons ex­er­cis­ing, es­pe­cial­ly fe­males. Cre­at­ing these safe, ha­rass­ment-free en­vi­ron­ments is ab­solute­ly vi­tal for en­cour­ag­ing women, who car­ry the high­est bur­den of obe­si­ty, to step out­side dai­ly.

A stum­bling block to this no-brain­er sug­ges­tion is who leads the ini­tia­tive, who gets the cred­it, and how and if sus­tain­abil­i­ty is to be main­tained, es­pe­cial­ly if there is a change in gov­ern­ment.

Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, in part­ner­ship with the Na­tion­al Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA), must ac­tive­ly cham­pi­on dai­ly phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty to com­ple­ment the School Feed­ing Pro­gramme. It is coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to pro­vide healthy meals if chil­dren re­main seden­tary. Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion [PE] has to be part of the holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly at the pri­ma­ry school lev­el. PE must be ex­e­cut­ed by per­sons trained in PE, not per­sons. who like sport, played sport, or oc­cu­py the po­si­tion by de­fault. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it is hoped that PE is not neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the pur­suit of aca­d­e­m­ic met­rics, such as the num­ber of place­ments at ‘pres­ti­gious’ sec­ondary schools at the pri­ma­ry school lev­el and the num­ber of full CSEC/CAPE cer­tifi­cates and schol­ar­ships at the sec­ondary school lev­el. These are re­search top­ics.

All school en­vi­ron­ments [gov­ern­ment, de­nom­i­na­tion­al, and pri­vate] must ex­plic­it­ly link nu­tri­tion to phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty to curb child­hood NCD risks ear­ly on. The ques­tion that may arise is whether the schools have the nec­es­sary re­sources to achieve these good in­ten­tions.

The 5K cul­ture has laid a pos­i­tive foun­da­tion of en­er­gy and en­thu­si­asm. Ide­al­ly, a true health cul­ture must be owned by the peo­ple, built from the pave­ment up through dai­ly, self-sus­tain­ing com­mu­ni­ty du­ty, guid­ed by pre­cise health da­ta, and sup­port­ed by clean, se­cure spaces to move. How­ev­er, is it pos­si­ble when re­sources are un­even­ly dis­trib­uted, and pol­i­tics and bu­reau­cra­cy are in the mix?

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.