One in four children overweight, Health Minister warns of obesity crisis

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

One in every four chil­dren in Trinidad and To­ba­go is over­weight or obese, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe warned on Sun­day as he called for greater em­pha­sis on phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty and health­i­er eat­ing to com­bat the coun­try's grow­ing child­hood obe­si­ty cri­sis.

Speak­ing at the open­ing of a new­ly out­fit­ted play­room at the Wendy Fitzwilliam Pae­di­atric Hos­pi­tal, Dr Bo­doe said ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25 per cent of the na­tion's chil­dren are over­weight or obese, with phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty play­ing a ma­jor role.

He said child­hood obe­si­ty is no longer sim­ply a mat­ter of ap­pear­ance or fit­ness but is now con­tribut­ing to the ear­ly on­set of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs), in­clud­ing di­a­betes, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease and cer­tain can­cers.

"These con­di­tions, once thought to af­fect on­ly adults, are now emerg­ing in our youngest pop­u­la­tion. This threat­ens their fu­ture, their qual­i­ty of life and places an un­sus­tain­able bur­den on our health­care sys­tem," he said.

Dr Bo­doe thanked the Rapid Fire Kidz Foun­da­tion for its con­tri­bu­tion, say­ing play was es­sen­tial to chil­dren's de­vel­op­ment and re­cov­ery.

"Play is not a lux­u­ry; it is a ne­ces­si­ty. For chil­dren, play is the lan­guage of growth. It nur­tures cre­ativ­i­ty, builds re­silience, strength­ens so­cial bonds and sup­ports emo­tion­al heal­ing," he said.

He added that hos­pi­tal play­rooms pro­vide chil­dren with a safe space to es­cape, even briefly, the stress of ill­ness and treat­ment while en­cour­ag­ing move­ment and so­cial in­ter­ac­tion.

Dr Bo­doe al­so said the Min­istry of Health was work­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to pro­mote phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty in schools and was de­vel­op­ing a Prac­ti­cal Hand­book on the Strength­ened Nu­tri­tion Guide­lines for Food and Bev­er­ages Of­fered in Schools to help cre­ate health­i­er food en­vi­ron­ments.

He said stronger nu­tri­tion stan­dards, com­bined with in­creased op­por­tu­ni­ties for ex­er­cise, would help re­duce the fu­ture bur­den of non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases and en­sure chil­dren grow up health­i­er and more ac­tive.

Mean­while, Rapid Fire pres­i­dent Kevin Rati­ram an­nounced that for­mer Miss Uni­verse Wendy Fitzwilliam has ac­cept­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to be­come the foun­da­tion's of­fi­cial pa­tron.

Pre­sent­ing Fitzwilliam with one of the Foun­da­tion's T-shirts, Rati­ram said he hoped that Fitzwilliam would be part of their char­i­ty ball sched­uled for No­vem­ber.

Re­flect­ing on the foun­da­tion's work, Rati­ram said mem­bers had vis­it­ed chil­dren's wards every Christ­mas since the or­gan­i­sa­tion was found­ed in 2012.

"Every sin­gle Christ­mas, the Rapid Fire Kidz Foun­da­tion treats the chil­dren of the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal," he said, adding that the tra­di­tion con­tin­ued even dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic when mem­bers de­liv­ered toys de­spite be­ing un­able to en­ter the wards.

He said the ini­tia­tive was lat­er ex­tend­ed to Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

Rati­ram be­came emo­tion­al as he de­scribed en­coun­ters with se­ri­ous­ly ill chil­dren over the years.

"Vis­its to chil­dren's wards in a hos­pi­tal, it changes your per­spec­tive on life. We have held in our arms sick chil­dren, ter­mi­nal­ly ill chil­dren, chil­dren who are dy­ing, and chil­dren who lit­er­al­ly live in the hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing aban­doned. It af­fects you in a way that can't be de­scribed in words," he said.

Re­call­ing one young pa­tient named Shelly, who had cere­bral pal­sy, Rati­ram said foun­da­tion mem­bers looked for­ward to see­ing her each Christ­mas.

"If you leaned over her crib with a toy, talked to her and laughed with her, she would start to smile. Those are the mo­ments that re­mind us why we do this," he said.

Fitzwilliam al­so praised the foun­da­tion and ex­pressed grat­i­tude for the work done over the past few years.