Recently BU posted an article which has proved to be very popular. Although many commenters preferred to focus on some of the peripheral points in the article, we wish to stress again the core point which we tried to make. There is irrefutable scientific data which supports the position that hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and many other medical conditions are associated with obesity. So Radiance we will rest on this point! The matriarch in the BU household felt that we should use our blog to reinforce the need for good healthy living. As luck would have it a member of the BU family emailed an article which has provided us with the opportunity to raise awareness and to hopefully generate some further discussion – thank you again V!.
Many commenters on our previous article made the valid point that obesity in our society can be alleviated through the practice of a healthy lifestyle. One practice which Barbadians should focus on in our opinion is to be more selective in what we eat. It is therefore mandatory that we educate ourselves about the world of food. How we buy and prepare our foods must become more of a focal point in our life. The Consumers International organization recently announced its bad products awards for 2007 and we found some of their findings to be relevant to this discussion.
Here is the full article; we have highlighted below some interesting points made in the article.
Another award went to drinks giant Coca-Cola for pushing marketing into the realms of the ridiculous in the United States and South America with its Dasani bottled water which is sourced from the same reservoirs as local tap water.
Kellogg’s, best known for its cereals, was given a bad food award for the worldwide use of cartoon characters and marketing aimed at children despite the high levels of salt and sugar in some foods. Kellogg’s are one of a number of international food companies that make money by selling products high in fat, sugar and/or salt, Consumers International said. Threatened with litigation in the US, Kellogg’s have agreed to change some of their marketing practices, however we believe they are doing too little, too late.
For those of you who do not see our point, we continue to be amazed that people would use the agnostic argument when discussing religion but would operate with blind trust when accepting what these large global companies disseminate about their products. To use a quote from the article:
Consumers International, a global federation of consumer advocate organizations, said the awards aimed to highlight the abuse of consumer trust. These multi-billion dollar companies are global brands with a responsibility to be honest, accountable and responsible, the group’s director general Richard Lloyd said.
This discussion should not be politicized but quite frankly we have been disappointed at the role of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs. They have failed to work in a practical way to heighten public awareness on the need to encourage a higher level of consumerism. We would have thought that the educated Barbadian recognizing that we are now listed high on the list of non-communicable diseases would have found it easy to adjust our lifestyles. We have been disappointed that the reverse has occurred and we have now become addicted to a ‘junk’ lifestyle which is wrecking havoc on our health care system. The ramification of this state can be seen in the public purse and productivity relative to our GDP and has created yet another headache for the policymakers.
Barbados is not a member of Consumers International. A quick scan of their website shows that a government or organization can become a member. The need to ensure the standards of our products are consistent with what is happening across the world can only be done with the kind of support organizations like Consumers International can offer. It seems to us that there is an urgent need to rearrange many of our national priorities.
To change the unhealthy lifestyle of our nation will call for some serious policy initiatives.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.