The is­sue of child­hood obe­si­ty in the Caribbean is a press­ing health con­cern. In 2015, the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) re­port­ed that at least one in five chil­dren in the re­gion car­ry un­healthy weights. This trend cor­re­lates with the risk of de­vel­op­ing non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases (NCDs), such as di­a­betes and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases, lat­er in life (CARPHA, 2015).

These con­di­tions threat­en the health and well-be­ing of the in­di­vid­ual and con­tribute to high­er life­time health­care costs for both the in­di­vid­ual and the state. In 2016, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh fur­ther em­pha­sised the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion, not­ing a 100% in­crease in obe­si­ty among chil­dren over the past 15 years. He warned that while sug­ar is of­ten blamed for the ris­ing obe­si­ty rates, in­ac­tiv­i­ty is an equal­ly sig­nif­i­cant cul­prit.

Pro­mot­ing sports and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty with­in schools and com­mu­ni­ties of­fers a promis­ing in­ter­ven­tion. First­ly, pas­sion­ate ad­vo­ca­cy is need­ed to pro­mote the ben­e­fits of sports and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty. Rais­ing aware­ness of the im­por­tance of phys­i­cal ex­er­cise can in­crease par­tic­i­pa­tion rates across all de­mo­graph­ics, in­clud­ing chil­dren, ado­les­cents, and adults.

A mul­ti­sec­toral ap­proach is vi­tal, en­gag­ing stake­hold­ers from di­verse sec­tors such as the min­istries of Health, Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Ed­u­ca­tion, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), pri­vate sport­ing as­so­ci­a­tions, and the pri­vate sec­tor. A mul­ti­sec­toral ap­proach would lever­age the ex­per­tise and re­sources of dif­fer­ent agen­cies, en­sur­ing that the pro­mo­tion of sports and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty is sus­tained and ef­fec­tive over the long term.

Stake­hold­ers from the health sec­tor would be re­spon­si­ble for ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic on the health risks of in­ac­tiv­i­ty and the ben­e­fits of a more ac­tive lifestyle. In con­trast, the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor could work to en­sure that phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion is a vi­tal part of the school cur­ricu­lum. Col­lab­o­ra­tion with the pri­vate sec­tor could pro­vide ad­di­tion­al re­sources and op­por­tu­ni­ties for com­mu­ni­ties to en­gage in sports. Such part­ner­ships could al­so help fund com­mu­ni­ty-based pro­grams to en­cour­age phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty in ar­eas with lim­it­ed recre­ation­al fa­cil­i­ties.

Ef­fec­tive in­ter­ven­tion re­quires ro­bust mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion mech­a­nisms to as­sess the suc­cess of im­ple­ment­ed pro­grams. It is not enough to as­sume that in­creas­ing phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty re­duces obe­si­ty. A rig­or­ous mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem would en­sure that per­for­mance bench­marks and stan­dards en­able stake­hold­ers to mea­sure the im­pact of their ef­forts.

The ab­sence of a strate­gic mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem could al­low for in­ef­fi­cien­cies and missed op­por­tu­ni­ties, ul­ti­mate­ly lim­it­ing the suc­cess of phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty pro­grams in ad­dress­ing child­hood obe­si­ty.

Reg­u­lar eval­u­a­tion al­lows for the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of suc­cess­ful ini­tia­tives and the mod­i­fi­ca­tion of those that are not achiev­ing the de­sired out­comes. For ex­am­ple, a pro­gram en­cour­ag­ing school sports par­tic­i­pa­tion may ini­tial­ly ap­pear suc­cess­ful due to in­creased par­tic­i­pa­tion. Still, with­out track­ing obe­si­ty rates and re­lat­ed health out­comes, its ac­tu­al ef­fec­tive­ness re­mains un­known. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, eval­u­at­ing pro­grams en­sures that they are in­clu­sive and ac­ces­si­ble, par­tic­u­lar­ly for mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties that may face more sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­ers to par­tic­i­pa­tion in sports and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

En­gage­ment should be­gin at the grass­roots lev­el, in­volv­ing lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties in the plan­ning and im­ple­men­ta­tion of pro­grams. Com­mu­ni­ty-based sports leagues could fos­ter reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pa­tion, while fam­i­ly-ori­en­tat­ed events in parks could en­cour­age ac­tive lifestyles for all ages. Pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tions could al­so of­fer in­cen­tives for peo­ple to use recre­ation­al spaces, such as dis­count­ed mem­ber­ships to sports clubs or sub­si­dies for equip­ment pur­chas­es.

In ad­di­tion to the mea­sures men­tioned above, the rec­om­men­da­tions from key re­gion­al re­ports should guide the strate­gic plan­ning of health in­ter­ven­tions. The CARPHA Re­port of 2015, the PANAM STEPS Re­port of 2012, and the CARI­COM NCDs Re­port of 2007 all high­light the im­por­tance of ad­dress­ing obe­si­ty and re­lat­ed NCDs through a com­bi­na­tion of health pro­mo­tion, pol­i­cy im­ple­men­ta­tion, and com­mu­ni­ty-based ac­tion (CARPHA, 2015; PANAM STEPS, 2012; CARI­COM NCDs, 2007). The find­ings of these re­ports em­pha­sise the need for an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach that in­cor­po­rates ed­u­ca­tion, sports pro­mo­tion, healthy eat­ing ini­tia­tives, and ac­tive com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment.

In ad­di­tion to im­prov­ing pub­lic health, such ef­forts can help re­duce the bur­den on na­tion­al health­care sys­tems. As the cost of treat­ing NCDs con­tin­ues to rise, pre­ven­tive mea­sures such as en­cour­ag­ing sports and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty of­fer a cost-ef­fec­tive so­lu­tion to some of the re­gion’s most press­ing health chal­lenges.