The Health Minister has urged parents and guardians to ensure that fast food is not a mainstay of their children's diets.

"Chicken and chips, pizzas, and hamburgers are not meal plans," Terrence Deyalsingh said.

He urged people to substitute sugary beverages with water and pay attention to the "sugar shocker.” He advised people to drink soft drinks and eat fast foods in moderation. He also encouraged people to eat more fruits and vegetables.

"Take ownership of your children's health by not exposing them every day to fast foods and sugary drinks. Let it be a treat. I am not saying no doubles ever, no chicken and chips ever, no hamburgers ever. I am saying do things in moderation," Deyalsingh said.

To adults, Deyalsingh added: "It is not too late to take ownership of your health and that of your families."

He spoke on Saturday at the inaugural ceremony of TT Moves health and wellness festival, a movement for lifestyle change. The event was held at Naparima Bowl in San Fernando. The South-West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) in collaboration with the ministry, hosted the festival.

[caption id="attachment_1032266" align="alignnone" width="1024"] - Laurel V Williams[/caption]

Deyalsingh said as they moved from a model of a health clinic to a health festival to celebrate health and wellness, significant focus was placed on mental health.

"Covid has shown and has exacerbated mental health issues like depression, suicidal thoughts, family violence, and gender-based violence," Deyalsingh said.

"There is no wellness, there is no health if you are not mentally and psychologically healthy. There is no dividing line between mental health and physical health, and we are bringing those two elements together."

He charged that 42 per of the over the 4,000 people who died during covid had high blood pressure as a comorbidity, and over 40 per cent had diabetes as a comorbidity.

"If those figures were lower, our mortality rate would have been significantly better. This is something that the Ministry of Health is paying attention to," Deyalsingh said.

"The issue of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) cannot be looked at in pockets of age. We have to adopt what we call the life course approach to it."

He added that healthcare professionals are tackling it at the point of pregnancy.

"We have diabetes and pregnancy programme where when we catch a diabetic mother and start to control diabetes during gestation," Deyalsingh said.

It is common knowledge that in a diabetic mother, especially if she is obese and overweight, the baby that is forming also has a greater chance of being born larger.

[caption id="attachment_1032267" align="alignnone" width="1024"] - Laurel V Williams[/caption]

"Coming through the birth canal with a large baby, you can have complications that lead to bleeding and maternal mortality," Deyalsingh said.

He recalled that the ministry instituted in 2020 the national breastfeeding policy.

Before that policy, the minister said, ten per cent of women in public health systems were breast