There is a need for persons to be made fully aware of the link between food, nutrition and non-communicable diseases.
That’s according to Professor of Nutrition, California State University, Dr. Gail Frank. Speaking to The Barbados Advocate recently, Frank insisted that persons have to be more mindful of what they eat and the impact that poor eating habits can have on their health.
“In the US we have a MyPlate – a visual of the portions and the types of food that should fit on a healthy plate and to a large extent the chronic diseases motivate what that plate looks like. Barbados can create and implement a healthy MyPlate and the beauty in Barbados is that you have wonderful flavours and tastes where you don’t need the high salt, or high sugar. But, there are a lot of fried type foods, so that is maybe an area that needs to be looked at, zeroing in on how frequently people eat those,” she said.
With that in mind, Dr. Frank said that the local food industry can create products that are very tasty and satisfy the cultural taste buds of the people, but which do not increase the calories that persons consume. She made the point while contending that over last the 30 to 40 years Barbados’ health problems and mortality reflect what we are seeing in other populations across the world.
“One is we are all gaining too much weight and that weight can bring on type 2 diabetes. The management of that, the reduction of that and other morbidities, other illnesses is crucial for Barbados to address, to see how we can stop the advancement of these chronic diseases,” she said.
The Professor of Nutrition’s comments came as she lamented that for some people in Barbados and the Caribbean, where rum is one of the major items produced, the majority of their calories are consumed through alcohol.
“That’s not helping their health status and it is hard to legislate a very economic important item like that, but I think that is a seriousness that needs to take place. Also important is the education of children, young males and females on how to create their plate and begin to seriously moderate the alcohol intake, the fried foods and truly enhance the fruits and vegetables. We want them to recognise that the average plate should be a little over half fruits and vegetables, which means you have a small amount of protein whether it is from chicken, fish, beef or pork and the remainder would be grains,” she added.
She contended then there is a need for a multi-pronged approach to ensuring good nutrition among people. That approach, she said, is a social ecological model (SEM) that starts the conversation among people, industry, schools, the church, the grocery stores among others, to start getting persons to change eating habits and eat healthier.
“It begins the conversation and under the SEM no one segment has total ownership. But if one segment feels they have all the answers and they defy contact and communication with the others it will not work very well,” she said. (JRT)