Former university principal Emerita, Professor Eudine Barriteau, has raised concerns about the involvement of fast-food sponsors in Barbados’ flagship children’s Crop Over event, Junior Kadooment, cautioning that it sends conflicting messages amid the country’s rising rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among youth.
Speaking at the renaming of the Graduate Studies Complex at The University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus on Wednesday, Barriteau used her official response to call for urgent action by researchers and policymakers to address what she described as troubling contradictions in national health messaging.
“I am calling on researchers at the Faculty of Medical Sciences to examine the overlapping contradictions of Barbados advocating a healthy nutrition policy in schools; fast fried food companies sponsoring Kiddies Kadooment bands; and the Centre for Disease Control advising one in three adolescents are diagnosed as pre-diabetic,” she said.
Her comments come days after the much talked about Junior Kadooment, where fast food brands were again among the major corporate sponsors of children’s bands and events.
“What is the adolescent diabetic rate in Barbados and Eastern Caribbean countries? Did our recent CARICOM Heads of Government meeting in Montego Bay discuss non-communicable diseases as part of the regional health agenda,” Barriteau asked.
Her remarks formed part of a broader call for The UWI to reassert its role as a think tank for Caribbean society and reignited questions about the alignment between public health goals and corporate influence, particularly during national festivals.
The Ministry of Health and Wellness recently launched a new National Nutrition Policy aimed at reducing the country’s burden of lifestyle-related diseases and building on its 2022 National School Nutrition Policy, which restricted unhealthy food sales in schools and promoted nutrition education.
Health officials said at the time that addressing the NCD epidemic required a “whole-of-government, whole-of-society” approach, and would involve regulating how food is marketed, produced and made available across all sectors including public events.
Barriteau joins advocates and other critics who have called for proper implementation of the policy in schools and otherwise, further issuing a rallying cry to the academic community, who she said “has to answer the call to initiate societal solutions.”
She also warned that ordinary citizens are often treated as problems to be managed, rather than people whose rights and well-being should be placed at the centre of national decision-making.
Barriteau, who served as principal of both the Open and Cave Hill Campuses of UWI, said the region must ask new questions about old problems, noting, “What should evolve are the questions we ask of these conundrums. Are there angles and perspectives we have not yet considered?”
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