"Talking 'bout food ah feel dat is here dat we really lorse we way, because everyday Tantie hearing 'bout a seta younger and younger Trinis getting sick wid what used to be ole people diseases-colon problems, all kinda cancer in all kinda strange places."Is like we eh eating enough ah de bhagie and ochroe and ting. Is all dat fast-fried 'cardboard' and de rest of food dat processed to within an inch of its life we does be shovelling in dat causing dese problems, oui."We need to get weself back to the habits dat made we grandparents reach a ripe ole age with never a trip by de doctor. Is de blue food and rest of provision wid stew saltfish, baigani and tomato choka wid sada dat responsible fuh making we forebears live long and healty."But yuh know how stubborn Trini could be, and how we does be so easily influenced by de North American styling...I ent know when we go learn."It eh too late yet...at least not for our children."(Reproduced with permission from the Trindiary of May 29, 2001.)
I wrote about the following ten years ago.Despite the decision of Dr Khan, the new Minister of Health, to block the attempted entry of McDonald's into the wards of the Children's Hospital at EWMSC, it is too late.People, always fascinated with "fasness," have bought into the idea that fast is the way to go. "Fas" money, fast drinking (before the curfew start), fast music, fast sex. People now want a fast diagnosis and a fast treatment (injections anyone?) so they could go out and drive "fass, fass."Dr Khan is to be applauded for his decision. The pressure to not say anything must have been tremendous and they will come back at you, sir, so good luck in your endeavours.Take a walk around the Savannah this Sunday afternoon or just browse any big mall and count the number of fat children and people you see. You'll be surprised.I used to boast that Trinidadians were lean, fit and healthy. Not any more. I did an unofficial count of people going into PriceSmart one Saturday afternoon last month and one in five adults was overweight to the naked eye.
Even our athletes eat fast, to slow them down. Some weeks ago the psychologist with the West Indies cricket team, in his letter of resignation, noted that he had been unable to make the West Indian cricketers change their diet. Mr Hoad was quoted as saying that "they eat too much fried foods, and as everyone knows, fried food is not good for you, it makes you weak."No surprises here. Fast food is bad for athletes, bad for you and especially bad for children. This has been known for years in the USA. All sorts of attempts have been made to curb the influence of the fast food companies, to little avail.The typical American now consumes approximately three hamburgers and four orders of french fries a week. About half of the adult population visits a restaurant on any given day and more than half of the restaurant industry's annual revenue now comes from fast food.In 2000, Americans spent more than US$110 billion on fast food, more than they spent on new cars (US$101 billion), higher education (US$75 billion), records, tapes and CDs (US$12 billion), and movies (US$7 billion).
Childhood overweight has tripled in the US in the past 30 years, with one in four children overweight or at risk for overweight. This has been directly related to eating fast food, which is exorbitantly high in fats, saturated fats and salt.The typical small hamburger, without ketchup or anything else, has 260 calories with nine grams of fat, of which four grams is saturated. It also has half a gram of salt. A medium serving of french fries gives you 380 calories with 19 grams of fat (2.5 unsaturated) and one-third of a gram of salt. Not much salt here. That's why you see so many people adding salt to their fries as if their life depended on it. In a way it does.A piece of fried chicken breast, done the original way, has a staggering 400 calories hidden away inside its fat-enclosed meat; 220 calories come from fat. It also has over one gram of salt. A hot fudge sundae, my favourite, pumps 330 calories into you each time you order it.By comparison, an eight-year-old needs about 1,400 calories a day, of which 30 per cent or around 450 calories should come from fat and under ten per cent total calories from saturated fatty acids.The recommended intake of salt ranges from two to four grams a day (that was in 2001; today the figure is one to two grams, and some experts feel that half a gram a day is biologically sufficient). Children and their parents in T&T today consume diets that are substantially higher in dietary fat and salt than these recommended levels.It's too late, Tantie. Too late.
