An­drew Gioan­net­ti

Var­i­ous phys­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tions, nu­tri­tion­ist ad­vice and prod­uct give­aways will be among the at­trac­tions at this year's third an­nu­al Nes­tle Health Fair and 5K, on May 2, dur­ing which the fo­cus will be on obe­si­ty, T&T's most preva­lent non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­ease (NCD).

Once again, the health fair and the start of the 5K will take place at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, where thou­sands are ex­pect­ed to gath­er.

The race, which runs off at 4 pm, will of­fer over $13,000 in cash prizes and or­gan­is­ers are hop­ing that over 2,500 run­ners chal­lenge the 3.1 mile course. The health fair opens to the pub­lic at 2 pm. For the past two years, Nes­tle host­ed the event with a spe­cif­ic theme, start­ing in 2013 with an em­pha­sis on di­a­betes and then last year with a fo­cus on can­cer/can­cer re­lat­ed dis­eases, both of which, like obe­si­ty, are ma­jor pub­lic health con­cerns in this coun­try.

But, while the hand­some prizes are open to the top fin­ish­ers, "it is not re­al­ly a race; it is a par­tic­i­pa­tion," said Fran­cis Williams-Smith, one of the race or­gan­is­ers, who wants to see all par­tic­i­pants cross the fin­ish line.

Sel­ma Hodge, a nu­tri­tion­ist at the T&T As­so­ci­a­tion of Di­eti­tians, gave the fea­ture ad­dress dur­ing which she of­fered in­sight in­to obe­si­ty as it af­fects the lives of T&T cit­i­zens, pri­vate­ly and in the work­place.

Hodge re­mind­ed the gath­er­ing of a 2013 news­pa­per ar­ti­cle, which quot­ed the Min­istry of Health as say­ing that T&T, at the time, was ranked "the third fat­test coun­try in the world, be­hind Kuwait and the USA".

Over the past cou­ple years, T&T's place­ment on the list of most obese na­tions has var­ied de­pend­ing on the study and pub­li­ca­tion, but there is no dis­put­ing that those po­si­tions have con­sis­tent­ly been among the worst.

Last year, this Gov­ern­ment took out a $110 mil­lion loan from the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) for the pur­pose of ini­ti­at­ing pro­grammes to pre­vent and con­trol risk fac­tors of chron­ic dis­eases among adults, as well as pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school stu­dents.

"Many were alarmed," Hodge said in ref­er­ence to the Min­istry of Health's as­ser­tions in 2013, adding, "The ar­ti­cle shared that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60 per cent of our pop­u­la­tion was over­weight or obese, and that 30 per cent of chil­dren un­der the age of 15 were obese. And, this was linked to di­et, par­tic­u­lar­ly fast food."

"We know too that over­weight and obe­si­ty are linked to chron­ic dis­eases. Among them, di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion and heart dis­ease. It is al­so now gen­er­al­ly ac­cept­ed that be­ing obese af­fects pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and can be an ob­struc­tion to achiev­ing one's pro­fes­sion­al goals."

"Obe­si­ty is on the rise and can cause loss­es to both em­ploy­er and em­ploy­ee," she said. "Stud­ies in­di­cate that obese work­ers have high­er ab­sen­teeism rates com­pared to health­i­er work­ers, a fac­tor that di­rect­ly af­fects pro­duc­tiv­i­ty."

On that note, Hodge en­cour­aged com­pa­nies to fa­cil­i­tate well­ness pro­grammes for their ben­e­fit and for the em­ploy­ees.

"Re­search done by Duke Uni­ver­si­ty in the US showed that the over­weight and obese are more prone to work in­juries, and take more sick days that their health­i­er coun­ter­parts."

She sug­gest­ed that com­pa­nies as­sist in pro­mot­ing the well-be­ing of their em­ploy­ees in the work­place by: en­cour­ag­ing ex­er­cise-sub­si­dized gym mem­ber­ships or pro­vid­ing an ex­er­cise fa­cil­i­ty on the com­pound; pro­vid­ing doc­tors, nurs­es and di­eti­tians for on-site clin­ics; of­fer­ing fi­nan­cial or oth­er in­cen­tives to en­cour­age healthy be­hav­iours; of­fer­ing healthy meals/snacks; of­fer­ing men­tal health pro­grammes; of­fer­ing weight loss/stress man­age­ment pro­grammes (ces­sa­tion pro­grammes for al­co­hol and to­bac­co); and cre­at­ing aware­ness by us­ing posters/leaflets in em­ploy­ee-cen­tred ar­eas."

Hodge thanked the spon­sor, Nes­tle for its fore­sight in re­duc­ing the added-sug­ar con­tent in many of its prod­ucts. On May 2, among oth­er things, the heath fair will of­fer bone den­si­ty test­ing, blood pres­sure, sug­ar lev­els, mam­mo­grams and eye ex­am­i­na­tions.

The booth hold­ers in­clude the Can­cer So­ci­ety, Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion, YM­CA, the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, T&T Heart Foun­da­tion, the Min­istry of Health and Op­tometrist To­day.

Body mass in­dex test­ing, nu­tri­tion and di­etary con­sul­ta­tions as well as Nes­tle prod­uct sam­ples will al­so be avail­able with­in the booths. Those who wish to reg­is­ter for the 5K can do so at any Ken­ny's Sport Cen­tre out­let na­tion­wide at a cost of $55, which in­cludes a t-shirt.