With the Carnival season in full swing Health Minister, Terrence Deyalsingh, is warning young people in particular to refrain from chasing alcohol with energy drinks as this can lead to cardiac problems.
"The indiscriminate use of energy drinks in parties and fetes especially as a chaser is another crisis that will affect our young people," Deyalsingh added.
He said the ministry could only use moral suasion, at this time, as there was nothing to prevent the sale or consumption of energy drinks.
Describing the branding of such drinks as excellent, he said often times it appealed to a man's virility.
"When you mix this as young people are doing these energy drinks are stimulants which contain high levels of caffeine and sugar. And we are now mixing these stimulants with a depressant called alcohol," Deyalsingh said adding that young people, even in their teenage years have been admitted to hospital after consuming these drinks.
The minister said next on his agenda would be meeting with the nation's bakers and snacks manufacturers so as to reduce the amount of salt in bread as studies have shown that high salt intake was directly linked to hypertension.
He said he had already asked the Food and Drug Committee to set up the meeting adding that too much salt consumption was another worrying issue.
As the Health Ministry rolled out its childhood obesity prevention and control programme, Deyalsingh blamed parents for putting unhealthy snacks and meals in their children's lunch kits, reiterating the fact that obesity in school children five to 18 had increased from 11 per cent in 1999 to 23 per cent in 2009.
From April this year he also reiterated that not only soft drinks would be banned from Government and Government assisted schools but also sports and energy drinks, tea, coffee and milk-based drinks with added sugars and artificial sweeteners.
Saying that the high prevalence of childhood obesity led to the early onset of non-communicable diseases, in particular hypertension, he said the four key strategic objectives of the plan for NCDs included multi-sectoral policies and partnerships for NCD prevention and control, NCD risk factors and protective factors, health system response to NCDs and risk factors and NCD surveillance and research.
He said the ministry was also collaborating with the Education Ministry to implement these initiatives and called for children to be drinking more water.
Zena Ramatali, president of the National Parent-Teacher Association, who welcomed the idea of insisting that children drink more water, however, said there was some negative feedback from some parents who asked whether children would be instead getting "jail food" to eat in schools.
But Deyalsingh said it was better that school children eat "jail food' now rather than "hospital food" twenty years from now.
He said at a recent visit to one of the hospitals he met a 17-year-old girl who was on dialysis for the rest of her life due to advanced diabetes.
DISCUSSIONS
The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education have been collaborating on this issue and discussions have included:
�2 Primary healthcare and promotion;
�2 Improving school nutrition and physical activity environments;
�2 Fiscal policies and the regulation of food marketing and
�2 Surveillance, research and monitoring and evaluation.