Min­is­ter of Health Dr Fuad Khan is call­ing the min­istry's Fight the Fat pro­gramme a bat­tle against fast foods and oth­er un­healthy snacks mar­ket­ed to chil­dren. At a press con­fer­ence an­nounc­ing Na­tion­al Well­ness Day, held at the min­istry's head­quar­ters at 63 Park Street, Port-of-Spain, Khan said: "This well­ness day is part of our fight against neg­a­tive ad­ver­tis­ing to our chil­dren and the Min­istry of Health is tak­ing a lead­er­ship role. "What I'm try­ing to make aware to Trinidad and To­ba­go is what is be­ing fed to our chil­dren and what is be­ing ad­ver­tised to them from the fast food in­dus­tries," he said. "We have cre­at­ed a cadre of high cho­les­terol lev­els, high sug­ar lev­els and high lev­els of Type II di­a­betes."

He added that "too much mon­ey" was be­ing spent in the na­tion­al health­care sys­tem on treat­ment of car­dio­vas­cu­lar and kid­ney dis­eases re­lat­ed to un­healthy lifestyles. Yvonne Lewis, the min­istry's di­rec­tor of health pro­mo­tion, said sta­tis­tics show that six out of ten deaths lo­cal­ly are due to chron­ic ill­ness­es such as heart dis­ease or di­a­betes. She said 50 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion was at risk of de­vel­op­ing a chron­ic dis­ease. Na­tion­al Well­ness Day will be held on Au­gust 12 at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain. The event in­cludes a Fight the Fat Tri­ni Food Makeover com­pe­ti­tion with $30,000 in prizes, Fight the Fat Well­ness Fest, Fight the Fat 5k Run and en­ter­tain­ment by lo­cal artistes such as Fay-Ann Lyons and Shur­wayne Win­ches­ter.