Poor diet equals poor health

As we have just completed the Christmas holiday season with its generally lavish consumption of food and drink, it might be an opportune time to reflect on the current dietary habits of the vast majority of Trinidadians and Tobagonians. Poor diet as one of the major causes of chronic lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular ailments, kidney malfunctions, strokes and hypertension is well known. They affect all ethnic groups and classes to varying degrees.

We have been continuously reminded of the huge burden placed on the resources of the public health system in treating the large numbers afflicted with these diseases and the complications arising there from. Then there is the substantial drain on the family’s financial and emotional resources and the loss of productivity and reduced life span induced by these ailments. In addition, there is the undeniable connection between the quantity and quality of food consumed and the incidence of obesity which we are told has reached crisis proportions in this country.

A rational view is that a relatively feasible and properly executed national programme of preventive health care focusing on diet would not only be cost effective but raise the health status of large numbers in the country.

Such a programme should go well beyond the routine well-meaning pronouncements of Ministers of Health, the exhortations emanating from professional seminars, the casual newspaper articles and the odd poster in hospitals and health centers. These items of publicity reach only a few and do not carry the emphasis and impact needed to change behaviour.

It cannot be over emphasized that the objective is to alter behaviour in a progressive way which is a most arduous, formidable and challenging task as anyone in public or professional life will attest.

It is a question of how to influence people to save themselves although appeal is made to their rational self interest.

Needless to say, this particular health care problem requires a multi-pronged approach. One of the critical elements is sustained and focused education at all levels in the society including pre-schools, primary and secondary.

Thus children and adolescents will be sensitized to the benefits of healthy eating with the relevant habits inculcated at an early age. More importantly, the programme has to focus on adults with officials reaching out to people in their communities in face to face interaction. Thus, every community centre, health centre, meeting place and school becomes a centre of health education on an ongoing basis.

The cost of such a programme of preventive health care would be more than offset by the gains made in having a healthier and more productive population and a more cost effective health care system. Having said the above the issue must be confronted as to what are some of the factors which militate against healthy eating in this country. There is the cultural issue of what the average Trinidadian regards as having a good time and the consumption pattern associated with it which may include much fried,fatty and processed foods and quantities of sugar laden drinks. Can such a cultural propensity be altered? And in what way? Then there is the increasingly fast pace of life which has resulted in people spending fewer hours on time-consuming activities such as cooking. As a result, they resort to purchasing cooked food from the numerous fast food outlets throughout every nook and cranny of the country. This fast-food culture has in no small way contributed to the rapid decline in healthy eating habits in the country.

How is this culture to be countered?