Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.
With several Parliamentarians expressing concern over the impact of illegal drug abuse, Prime Minister Mia Mottley turned the spotlight on another type of addiction facing many Barbadians; a love for unhealthy food and drink.
“There is an issue with addiction and bad habits in the country. The addiction is not just with cannabis. The addiction is with macaroni pie. The addiction is to pigtail,” she said, while reflecting on her own love for the salted meat, and pork chops.
Admitting it was not easy to give up an addiction, while reminiscing on the many years it took for her to successfully quit cigarette smoking, she said many persons were also struggling with alcohol addiction.
“I understand the challenges of addiction with respect to things that people like. There are people who like liquor, who must have a rum or brandy every day or a whiskey. There are some who believe that a meal without wine is not a meal, but I do believe that there are some things we have to tell our people ‘look cease and settle’.
“The chronic non-communicable diseases, it hurts me . . . the extent to which young Barbadians are more at risk of Diabetes Two now, I suspect there is far more risk there than for most other things in their behaviour, but because it appears to be benign we say ‘let the child eat some food, you always humbugging the child about eating greens all the time’, when in truth and in fact all of us in here know that the digestion system needs it and there are certain discussions we are not having,” she continued.
In a bid to arrest the issue, Mottley said she would be reaching out to the Ministry of Empowerment and Elder Affairs and the Public Affairs Division in the Ministry of Home Affairs and had already spoken with the Education Ministry to educate the public to push a “transformation in how we eat and how we drink”.
“You are giving children juice loaded up with a lot of sugar all day! All of that leads to the same issue,” she stated.
The PM noted a holistic approach was therefore necessary to address the situation.
“I want to change the structures that we have in our social sector ministry in order to be able to allow them to treat to families as opposed to individuals.
When you treat to individuals, you do not have allies in the fight. When you treat to families you have allies; when you treat to the church, the community groups and the cultural groups and sporting groups, you have allies,” she explained.
Noting the process had started but had been delayed by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mottley added “I give this honourable Chamber the commitment that this Government will stay focused on changing the structures of our social services, just as we are intending to do with our educational services, and just as we are doing now with our criminal justice system.”
The PM also insisted more had to be done to help parents in the often difficult task of parenting to be able to gain a sense of control. (JMB)