By Eulalee Thompson
Staff Reporter
CLOSE CONTACT with the eating culture of developed countries has produced the "supersize-it" generation in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean.
Dr. Manuel Pena, Country Representative in Jamaica of PAHO/WHO, calls them "generation XXL - the junk generation." These are the children -- and adults -- who are in and out of fast food stores supersizing their hamburgers, chicken servings and carbonated drinks and packing in too much foods with high density energy, that is, fats and sugars.
There is a high consumption of sugar and bad fats (the saturated fatty acids, transfatty acids and cholesterol) and the serving portions at meal-time are becoming larger all because of acculturation from the developed countries, Dr. Pena says.
The result of this changing eating pattern is obesity, which health authorities are now describing as the current pandemic and of major public health concern for the region. Dr. Pena said there were changes in the prevalence of obesity with Caribbean people developing the condition at younger ages and the pattern in developing countries was that obesity was increasing after adolescence.
Also, he pointed to changes in the prevalence of obesity by ethnicity indicating a 39.2 per cent increase in prevalency of the condition among the U.S. black population between 1991 and 1998. The Hispanic population however, had the highest increase among the ethnic groups with 80 per cent.
The underlying factors for the increase are dietary changes and increasing physical inactivity. Dr. Pena said there was a higher consumption of fast foods -- the high-energy dense diet but low in nutrients. Along with the fast-food culture is the oversizing of meals, so people were eating larger portions at each sitting but expending less energy by way of exercise.
Obesity is a risk factor for various nutrition-related non-communicable chronic diseases (NCCDs), some of which are significant causes of death in the region such as ischemic heart disease, Type II or non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), hypertension, some types of cancer, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.
