With Barbados’ childhood obesity rate rising to 42 per cent from 33 per cent, advocates and officials are raising an alarm and calling for a restriction on unhealthy foods and drinks across all schools in Barbados.
Executive director of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, Maisha Hutton, said the situation required urgent action as the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados launched a mass media campaign titled Enough. If it harms our children’s health, it must be regulated.
“Enough is a powerful word,” Hutton said. “It is a word we say when we have watched a problem grow for far too long. When we have gathered enough data, heard enough stories, visited enough doctors, and buried enough of our people. It is a word we say when we are ready to act. And today that word becomes a rallying cry for our children.”
Enough Campaign Launch of Heart and Stroke Foundation. (Photo Credit: Lourianne Graham/Barbados TODAY)
Hutton warned that nearly half of the country’s children were being placed on a path towards diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and some cancers.
Ministry officials and health advocates at the Launch of the mass media campaign to restrict unhealthy food and drinks at schools (Photo Credit: Lourianne Graham/Barbados TODAY)
Minister of Health Senator Lisa Cummins also expressed concern over the rising obesity rate.
She said: “That data is captured extensively and substantially in the Barbados health report, and you can find that easily online…we have our children who are living with overweight, yes, and obesity. Just about 10 years that number was not at 42 per cent, it was at 33 per cent, so it means that the number is rising.
Senator Cummins warned that childhood obesity was no longer simply a health matter:
“Behind those numbers, children’s well-being are being compromised, unlike those in previous generations, we’re now seeing hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and those non-communicable diseases that I spoke about emerging at a younger age, placing youth, our children, at risk and imposing an ever-growing burden on families, communities, and on our healthcare system.
“So this is not a health issue alone. It is not an education issue alone. It is in fact a social issue, it is an economic issue that is strong, but ultimately it is a national development issue.”
Children were being exposed to highly sophisticated marketing messages and deserved special protection, she said.
“I agree, we agree that children do not possess the same capacity as adults. Critically evaluate the marketing messages that you see. They are highly sophisticated. You are influenced by what you see, hear, and experience.
“That is why societies around the world have recognised that you deserve that special protection.”
The minister stressed that while regulation was important, responsibility also rested with parents and caregivers.
“Children live first, what they see and they hear from the adults around them, what choices do we make on behalf of our children long before they can even read a full book, thereby curating their taste buds, helping to shape their preferences.”
She pointed to the overconsumption of foods during gatherings at buffets, the over-saturation of carbohydrates compared to the meagre supply of vegetables and salads, stressing the need to address adults first.
Campaigns and policies alone would not solve the problem, Senator Cummins suggested.
“We need awareness, we need education, we need community engagement, and we need national resolve and campaigns such as this one to stand right alongside individual responsibility and personal commitments.”
Chief executive officer of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Greta Yearwood, said the campaign’s central message that children’s health must come before commercial interests.
CEO of Heart and Stroke Foundation Greta Yearwood. (Photo Credit: Lourianne Graham/Barbados TODAY)
“If marketing practices contribute to unhealthy behaviours and place children’s health at risk, then appropriate measures must be taken to regulate them.”
She called for collaboration among all interest groups.
“This campaign calls on us, on all of us parents, educators, health professionals, policymakers, community leaders, and young people themselves to work together in creating healthier school environments and supporting policies that protect children from the unhealthy marketing practices. We are launching a call to action, a call to put children’s health first and to create environments that help them thrive.”
Hutton argued that children were being targeted through multiple marketing channels.
“Ultra-processed foods are being marketed to our children in the very places we send them to learn and to grow in and around our schools, through branded equipment, sponsored events, vouchers, and giveaways. The food industry is building brand loyalty in young minds that are not yet equipped to critically assess what they are being sold.”
She stressed: “This is not accidental. This is a strategy, and it must be stopped through regulation.”
Hutton also linked the issue to children’s rights, saying: “Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every nation on earth, every child has an inherent right to a healthy childhood free of exploitation.” The United States is the sole UN member state not to have ratified the convention.
Dr Lisa McLean-Trotman, social and behaviour change specialist with UNICEF’s Office for the Eastern Caribbean Area, said unhealthy food marketing was influencing children from an early age.
“The evidence shows that unhealthy food marketing is very highly persuasive and powerful in influencing children.”
Such marketing helped create social norms around food and eating habits and noted that adolescence was a critical stage of development, she said.
“In focusing on problems associated with ultra-processed foods, again, we all tend to focus on obesity, but we tend to overlook the fact that ultra-processed foods also lack other micronutrients, which are also important for brain development and well-being, and sometimes this also leads to other health concerns.”
Dr McLean-Trotman said obesity also affected other aspects of children’s lives, including education, mental health and social development.
“Research has shown correlations between obesity in children, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, and other mental health issues that we should be concerned about,” she said.
“This is not just a health issue, it’s a whole of country issue and that’s what we need to be looking at the whole issue of health and well-being as a whole of country approach.”
(LG)
