(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Love that Body! was the rallying cry of Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite, Deputy Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community(CARICOM) as she addressed participants following a Caribbean Wellness Day walk in Georgetown, Guyana on Saturday.
The walk was the highlight in Guyana of the Fifth Annual observances of the commitment to healthy lifestyles. The event was organized by the Ministry of Health, the CARICOM Secretariat and the Guyana office of the PanAmerican Health Organisation (PAHO) and took participants from the Headquarters of the Secretariat to the National Park in Georgetown a distance of about five kilometres. This year’s observance is being held under the theme ‘Love that Body – Building the Foundation for Healthy Lifestyles’ and focuses on addressing the prevention and control of Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) among the Regions’ children.
In that regard, the Deputy Secretary-General asked ‘some critical questions’ of the adults with respect to the lifestyles of the children.
“Are we facilitating for our children at least 30 minutes of daily physical activity? Are we setting an example by engaging in regular physical activities ourselves? Are we making accessible and providing meals that provide a balanced diet with the required food groups paying particular attention to fruits and vegetables? Are the portions provided appropriate or are we supersizing? Are we setting an example in our eating habits? Do we provide a smoke free environment for our children at home, in our cars and as far as possible in other public places? What example do we set in relation to the consumption of alcohol,” she asked.
The answers to these questions, Ambassador Applewhaite said, would tell the kind of foundation that the adults are building for the future generation. “The lifestyles and habits observed and developed during childhood are the basis of adult lifestyles with implications for our health as adults,” she added.
“As adults we have the responsibility to ourselves to lead healthy lifestyles for our personal well-being, as well as to ensure a healthy and productive workforce and an equal responsibility to our children to set good examples and nurture them in the development of their healthy lifestyles,” the Deputy Secretary-General said
She urged the adults to resolve to address the NCD risk factors and to be good examples to the children. “Let us also resolve to do what we can to ensure that our children develop healthy lifestyles to protecting their health and wellbeing, full in the knowledge that the ‘Health of the Region is the Wealth of the Region’, Ambassador Applewhaite said.
The annual celebration of Caribbean Wellness Day was inaugurated in 2008and is in keeping with the 2007 Port of Spain Declaration ‘Uniting to Stop the Epidemic of NCDs’. This Declaration was the outcome of the first ever summit on NCDs which was held in Port of Spain Trinidad and Tobago by CARICOM Heads of Government. That Declaration outlined a series of necessary measures to address the four main risk factors that foster NCDs, namely physical inactivity, inadequate diets, tobacco use and the harmful use of alcohol.
