Min­is­ter of Health Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe ap­peals for the pro­mo­tion of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty and health ed­u­ca­tion to ad­dress child­hood obe­si­ty, phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty, and non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases such as di­a­betes and hy­per­ten­sion, as well as to sup­port men­tal well-be­ing de­mands; se­ri­ous at­ten­tion.

Re­cent da­ta re­in­force the min­is­ter’s con­cern. On the eve of World Obe­si­ty Day 2025, ob­served an­nu­al­ly on March 4, the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) re­port­ed that in the Caribbean, “one in every three chil­dren is over­weight or obese.”

Fur­ther­more, they stat­ed that “the es­ti­mat­ed preva­lence of over­weight and obe­si­ty in adults in the Re­gion of the Amer­i­c­as was 67.5 per cent (an in­crease of 52 per cent from 1990), of which 33.8 per cent (36.5 per cent in women and 31.0 per cent in men) were obese.”

Ac­cord­ing to CARPHA, obe­si­ty in­creas­es the risk of NCDs in chil­dren and adults, “name­ly car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases (like heart dis­ease and stroke), di­a­betes mel­li­tus, can­cers, and chron­ic res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases (like chron­ic ob­struc­tive pul­monary dis­ease and asth­ma). NCDs are the lead­ing cause of ill­ness, death, and dis­abil­i­ty in the Caribbean re­gion. Obese chil­dren are more like­ly to be­come obese adults and are at a high­er risk of de­vel­op­ing NCDs in adult­hood.” https://carpha.org/More/Me­dia/Ar­ti­cles/Ar­ti­cleID/1004/CARPHA-Ad­vo­cates-for-Sys­temic-Changes-to-Re­duce-Child­hood-Obe­si­ty

In 2024, The Lancet Glob­al Health stat­ed that the glob­al preva­lence of in­suf­fi­cient phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty was 31.3 per cent among per­sons 18 years and old­er in 2022, an in­crease from 23.3 per cent in 2000 and 26.4 per cent in 2010. The da­ta for the Caribbean, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, is alarm­ing:

• Sain­ta – 20.0-29.9 per cent

• An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Ba­hamas, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Ja­maica, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines—30-39.9 per cent

• Bar­ba­dos, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad an­do – 40.0-49.9 per cent

The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) de­fines phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty as any bod­i­ly move­ment that re­quires en­er­gy ex­pen­di­ture (WHO, 2022). Both mod­er­ate- and vig­or­ous-in­ten­si­ty phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty im­prove health. The ben­e­fits of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty are well-re­searched and doc­u­ment­ed, such as:

• Re­duces Risk of Chron­ic Dis­eases—Reg­u­lar ex­er­cise low­ers the risk of type 2 di­a­betes, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, and some can­cers (e.g., colon, breast) (War­bur­ton & Bredin, 2019).

• Im­proves Men­tal Health & Re­duces De­pres­sion (Schuch et al., 2021).

• Weight Loss Man­age­ment (Cox, 2017).

Min­is­ter Bo­doe’s call for a mul­ti-sec­toral ap­proach is in keep­ing with the 2025 theme for World Obe­si­ty Day, “Chang­ing Sys­tems, Health­i­er Lives: Let’s put a spot­light on the sys­tems—not peo­ple— that need to change.”

Ac­cord­ing to CARPHA’s Dr Heather Arm­strong, “Avail­abil­i­ty, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty (eco­nom­ic) and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of safe, healthy foods and safe, eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble spaces for phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty/ex­er­cise to com­bat obe­si­ty re­quire the im­ple­men­ta­tion and reg­u­la­tion of poli­cies and leg­is­la­tion at all lev­els of so­ci­ety—health­care, com­mu­ni­ty, work­places, gov­ern­ment, food en­vi­ron­ments, and me­dia.”

The out­come of a sys­temic ap­proach to phys­i­cal in­suf­fi­cien­cy and obe­si­ty is a cul­tur­al lifestyle that pro­motes phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, phys­i­cal lit­er­a­cy, and health ed­u­ca­tion in homes, com­mu­ni­ties, re­li­gious bod­ies, the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, and the work­place.

Par­ents, guardians, teach­ers, re­li­gious lead­ers, com­mu­ni­ty groups, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs), and the cor­po­rate world must all play their part in cre­at­ing healthy spaces that pro­mote phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty and well-be­ing.

Sup­port must come from var­i­ous min­istries: Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Health, and Ed­u­ca­tion.

It will not be an easy task, as so­cioe­co­nom­ic fac­tors such as so­cial class, tra­di­tion­al cul­tur­al prac­tices, gen­der roles, and the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem can, in some cas­es, serve as sig­nif­i­cant ob­sta­cles to eat­ing health­ily and en­gag­ing in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

For in­stance, Adam and Nicole (2013) not­ed that “re­fined grains, added sug­ars, and added fats are among the low­est-cost sources of di­etary en­er­gy. They are in­ex­pen­sive, good-tast­ing, and con­ve­nient.

In con­trast, the more nu­tri­ent-dense lean meats, fish, fresh veg­eta­bles, and fruit gen­er­al­ly cost more.”

There­fore, pro­vid­ing ac­cess to safe fa­cil­i­ties for phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, en­sur­ing food se­cu­ri­ty, and hav­ing an ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that in­cor­po­rates sports and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty as es­sen­tial com­po­nents, among oth­er mea­sures, will be crit­i­cal. The goal is wor­thy, as it can po­ten­tial­ly fos­ter a health­i­er so­ci­ety while al­so pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ing the over­all costs of health—both in­di­vid­ual and so­ci­etal—es­pe­cial­ly in light of grow­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.