St. Vincent and the Grenadines is among the top 20 countries that were identified as having or acquiring a significant childhood obesity problem in the next decade along with the Bahamas and Dominica.
The Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) is calling for radical changes over the next decade to address obesity in Jamaica and the wider region. HCC Policy Advisor, Nicole Foster, said that 25.1 per cent of Jamaican children between the ages of five and nine and 19.9 per cent of children, ages 10 to 19, will be obese by the year 2030, if drastic measures are not taken.
According to the Jamaica Observer, she was citing statistics from the first Global Atlas on Childhood Obesity, published by the World Obesity Federation in October 2019, during a recent JIS Think Tank.
She noted further that information from the Caribbean Public Health Authority (CARPHA) indicates that the region “has an overweight and obesity prevalence that is widespread across both males and females and of great concern is the fact that the region has a serious and growing problem of childhood obesity.”
Foster said that Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean States were identified as having just a two per cent chance of meeting the World Health Organization (WHO) 2025 goal of having no increase in obesity prevalence, all things being equal.
Barbados, Guyana and Trinidad were all reported to have an even lower one per cent chance of reaching the 2025 goal.
