Health officials target obesity and related problems
Before I introduce this next story I want you to do something for me. Get up out of your chair and go to the nearest mirror. Take a good look at your belly, thighs…backside. Do you like what you see? If you don’t, as Patrick Jones discovered, those extra rolls of fat affect more than just your looks.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
The ninety-four page book is not telling us anything we don?t already know. Belizeans, like residents of the rest of the Caribbean, have a problem with obesity. According to Public Health Nutritionist with the Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute, Godfrey Xuereb, this manual is designed to give health care professionals important guidelines for the nutritional management of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.
Godfrey Xuereb, Public Health Nutritionist, CFNI
?It?s been developed for the whole Caribbean. I am pleased to announce that Belize today was the first launch that we have had in the Caribbean. And the aim is to train healthcare professionals and also members of the patient support groups like the Diabetes Association on the importance of nutrition and the management of these conditions. We want it to be a preventative tool, so it needs to be used to prevent diabetes, prevent hypertension, prevent obesity, and prevent the complications that come with it.?
Dr. Pauline Samuda, Nutritional Educator, C.F.N.I.
?It?s really a tool to help us to be saying the same message to everybody. So anybody who has to talk to or advise somebody with obesity, diabetes, and hypertension should use this book.?
Nutritional Educator at the Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute Dr. Pauline Samuda and Xuereb both agree that the easy availability of high calorie foods combined with an increasingly sedentary lifestyle make for a fertile breeding ground for a health crisis that is easily preventable.
Godfrey Xuereb, Public Health Nutritionist, C.F.N.I.
?The transition that has happened in the Caribbean is over the last thirty, forty years, we have seen under nutrition successfully being prevented and therefore our children are no longer suffering from the problems of under nutrition. However, we now go to the other side of the spectrum where adults and alarming so our young children are becoming more and more obese.?
Dr. Pauline Samuda
?Well obesity is a state whereby your body accumulates fat to a point that it is adverse to your health. We have the body mass index, which we now use to determine what is over weight and obesity. Formally we use to have things call ideal body weight for height. But those indicators are not as effective anymore because ideal weight?it?s very difficult to get people to [their] ideal [weight]. So we?re really looking at healthy, healthy body weight.?
In the case of Belize, Deputy Director of Health Services, Dr. Jorge Polanco, says simple changes can mean the difference between life and death.
Dr. Jorge Polanco, Deputy Dir. of Health Services
?The challenge is great. There is a nutrition culture in our cities, in our towns and that is what needs to be addressed. For example, we are all aware that there is a need for different components in the diet to different nutrients, carbohydrate, proteins for example, fats. That balance should be maintained. Whenever the balance is not maintained and there is an imbalance in the intake of these nutrients, that?s where the problem comes. An excess intake of calories either derived from carbohydrates or fats, will lead to an accumulation of fat. If nothing is done that just continues because of that easy access to foods with the nutrients not properly balanced.?
Samuda says denial is also a factor in dealing with the root cause of many of the health problems facing the Caribbean.
Dr. Pauline Samuda
?We tend to deny that we are obese. But we know when we get overweight whenever your normal clothes can?t fit you anymore. Clothes that you had a year or two ago can?t fit you anymore, don?t buy new clothes, you need to take off the weight.?
But that change won?t happen overnight. And while this book took five years to produce, the writers are hoping that it will not be an end in itself, but a means to achieving a healthier population.
Patrick Jones
That however, will prove to be something that is easier said than done, because while clinically it is easy to diagnose the problem, the changes that are necessary to make a difference will require that each and everyone of us make some major adjustments to something that is near and dear to us…our behaviour. Patrick Jones, for News Five.
The protocol for the nutritional management of obesity, diabetes and hypertension in the Caribbean is sponsored by the Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute and the Pan American Health Organization. For the rest of the week, nurses, doctors and other care providers will take part in workshops to introduce them to the programme.
