We have taken great pride in ourselves, as a
Caribbean people, over many decades in our irresistible local dishes including Creole,
Chinese,
Indian,
Asian
and African
menus. Many of these foods are filled with starches and are prepared with lots
of highly flavored seasonings that are sodium based and cook with lots of
butter and oils, which are high in cholesterol!
Our everyday West Indian lifestyles, our
food regime and traditions, like eating late at nights, drinking excessively
and smoking are among the main contributors affecting the fight against cancer and in no small way
undoing the efforts to combat the spread of the disease.
Like any other disease, the key to addressing
the scourge of cancer is living a healthy and balance life. That means a
balance diet and regular exercises, which is still, not emphasize enough in our
list of personal objectives. This is especially true of families, who have a
history of the disease, which is also a significant factor towards combating
cancer and promoting awareness.
It seems that as a young nation we are still
in the Awareness Stage, and we need to move to the point of awareness to taking
immediate Action and Responsibility to quickly slow the spread of the disease.
With carnival around the corner, you only
have to sit on a bench around the Queens
Park Savannah, the Eddie
Hart Grounds, Arranguez
Savannah or Skinner
Park at San Fernando to see how our men and women are working their butt off
to fit and fit in to their skimpy costumes; and that’s great for our carnival.
But combating cancer does not require a seasonal approach, what we need now is
encourage this type of individual pursuit of fitness and balance lifestyle
throughout the year.
Since the carnival
mentality is pervasive in our Triniculture, it’s probably a good thing to start
looking at utilizing the positives from our carnival culture to drive people
from Awareness of the disease to into continuous and Responsible Action. As a society we
have find ways to do more to encourage and promote the benefits of exercise and
a healthy food culture, which is essential to improving our quality of life and
reducing our medical bills.
It seems like our unhealthy lifestyles as a
society generally, may be inextricably linked to our noticeable increases in wealth.
The point here is, not to be critical of the increases in household incomes or,
the expansion of wealth, but to emphasize the fact that improvements in our standard
of living has had little impact on decreasing the spread of non-communicable
diseases like cancer.
Especially as there has been a tremendous
growth in the number of private
and public clinics and hospitals in Trinidad and Tobago; this says a lot,
more so, about our quality of life and the need for greater action by decision
makers to stem the spread of no communicable diseases like cancer.
