Trinidad and To­ba­go is join­ing the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty in com­mem­o­rat­ing Caribbean Well­ness Day with a se­ries of ac­tiv­i­ties which will take place across the coun­try through­out the month of Sep­tem­ber. Caribbean Well­ness Day is cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly on the sec­ond Sat­ur­day in Sep­tem­ber by mem­ber coun­tries of Cari­com as part of a uni­fied, re­gion­al re­sponse to the epi­dem­ic of Chron­ic Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases (CNCDs).

Heart dis­ease, can­cer, di­a­betes and stroke ac­count for 60 per cent of deaths an­nu­al­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It has al­so been not­ed that more than 40 per cent of this coun­try's pop­u­la­tion do not get suf­fi­cient ex­er­cise per week and more than 58 per cent are over­weight. Trinidad and To­ba­go, as a leader in this thrust to beat the epi­dem­ic of CNCDs, launched its Fight the Fat ini­tia­tive to rev­o­lu­tionise the lifestyles of T&T cit­i­zens every­where.

Each re­gion­al health au­thor­i­ty will host ac­tiv­i­ties un­der the Fight the Fat ban­ner through­out the month in com­mem­o­ra­tion of Caribbean Well­ness Day. Ac­tiv­i­ties at the var­i­ous events will in­clude health screen­ings for blood pres­sure, blood sug­ar, HIV, prostate, cho­les­terol, vi­sion, pap smears and health mea­sure­ments in­clud­ing weight, height and BMI cal­cu­la­tions. The events will al­so in­clude nu­tri­tion ed­u­ca­tion, aer­o­bics burnouts and fun ac­tiv­i­ties for chil­dren. All events are free and the pub­lic is in­vit­ed to at­tend.