Heart Foundation: Ban ultra-processed foods in schools

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Trinidad and To­ba­go Heart Foun­da­tion (TTHF) di­rec­tor Dr Sabi­ta Har­rikissoon is call­ing for a ban on ul­tra-processed foods in schools.

She made the ap­peal at the TTHF Go Red For Women High Tea and Fash­ion Show on Sun­day at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

Dr Har­rikissoon, who chairs the Go Red for Women Cam­paign, said over the last 11 years, they have sparked im­por­tant con­ver­sa­tions around heart dis­ease pre­ven­tion and in­ter­ven­tion.

Not­ing that heart dis­ease kills more fe­males than all can­cers com­bined, she urged women to take charge of their heart health and house­holds.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing un­equal ac­cess to care that puts vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties at greater risk, she called for gov­ern­ment ac­tion.

“We call on the Min­istry of Health to sup­port poli­cies like ban­ning ul­tra-processed foods in schools as they did for sug­ary drinks and to en­sure all pub­lic hos­pi­tals have the med­ica­tions and equip­ment need­ed for time­ly heart care.”

Har­rikissoon al­so high­light­ed the need for vol­un­teers, say­ing, “Every sin­gle one of us has the pow­er to do some­thing about heart dis­ease. It all be­gins with ed­u­ca­tion, aware­ness, and the courage to change. Be the change for your­self—and for those around you.”

Pub­lic health spe­cial­ist Dr Karen Sealey spoke on the in­creas­ing bur­den of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs), warn­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go, like the rest of Cari­com, is not on track to meet Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal 3 for good health and well-be­ing.

Dr Sealey, founder of the Trinidad and To­ba­go NCD Al­liance (TTNCD) linked the epi­dem­ic to un­healthy di­ets dom­i­nat­ed by sweet­ened bev­er­ages and ul­tra-processed prod­ucts high in salt, fat, sug­ar, and trans fats, along­side low phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

She not­ed, “The Caribbean has the worst rates of pre­ma­ture mor­tal­i­ty from car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases in the Amer­i­c­as.”

In T&T, she said, heart dis­ease caus­es one in five deaths—over 3,000 an­nu­al­ly—many be­fore age 70.

“We must be alarmed, not on­ly by the mor­tal­i­ty but by the im­pact on life ex­pectan­cy,” she added, point­ing to T&T’s av­er­age life ex­pectan­cy of 73.6 years, be­hind coun­tries with sim­i­lar in­come lev­els.

Da­ta from the 2024 STEPS sur­vey shows 15.8 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion has di­a­betes, 29 per cent hy­per­ten­sion, and 41 per cent high cho­les­terol.

Over 60 per cent of adults are over­weight or obese, and child­hood obe­si­ty has dou­bled from 11 per cent to 23 per cent in ten years.

“Too many of our chil­dren are eat­ing high­ly processed, sug­ary, salty foods and not mov­ing enough,” Dr Sealey warned.

She al­so flagged the ris­ing use of e-cig­a­rettes among youth, in­creased al­co­hol con­sump­tion among women, and the so­cio-eco­nom­ic toll of NCDs. “This is not just a health cri­sis. It is a na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment is­sue,” she em­pha­sised.

De­spite the chal­lenges, Dr Sealey cit­ed pos­i­tive steps, in­clud­ing T&T’s se­lec­tion as a front-run­ner in the WHO Ac­cel­er­a­tion Plan to Stop Obe­si­ty, which pro­motes in­ter­ven­tions like tax­es on un­healthy foods and school nu­tri­tion pro­grams.

“The TTNC­DA stands ready to sup­port the Min­istry of Health,” she said, urg­ing col­lec­tive ac­tion.