Health Minister Julius Timothy is encouraging Dominicans to get active by walking, swimming or running.
He has also issued a call for the nation to eat healthy.
Timothy told an address to commemorate the 6th Caribbean Nutrition Day today, that a healthy lifestyle will result in a healthier person.
“There are many benefits associated with being physically active. They include a healthier heart, reducing body fat, lowering high blood pressure or reducing the risks for some cancers. However caution has to be taken at all times of how much activity is needed,” he said.
This year’s observance is being held under the theme Healthy Eating, Active Living.
On this 6th Caribbean Nutrition Day, calls for people to eat healthy resound everywhere. Ministers of Health spew the usual rhetoric about eating healthy. Our ability to feed ourselves have diminished considerably. Agriculture is not given the attention and priority that it needs. Farmers face hell. Everybody else gets gratuity and pension and perks and God knows what. What does the poor farmer get for working so hard to ensure food security? Just go on the shelves of the supermarkets in Dominica, for example, and you’ll see for yourself. 95%, maybe more, of our food is imported while we have rich soil and abundant water. Farmers are living their farms in droves for ‘greener pastures’ overseas. Many farmers cannot afford those exorbitant prices for inputs. Food production goes down and down.
The cost of fertiliser and other inputs for farmers have increased by almost 100%, thereby pushing the cost of food here to the highest level. Recently, Purchases of fertilizer have been deliberately inflated to make profits, but the poor farmer never benefited from those profits.
KFC hormone injected chicken and fatty food cannot be compatible with healthy eating. Yet, just next to that local food market is KFC with half of the road there allocated to KFC to assist people getting their stuff. With increased marketing by KFC, our young children are bashed to get a taste. How many youth and grown-ups flock there everyday, but do not visit the local food market as frequently. So talk and more talk. Walking or swimming alone will never be a solution. Agriculture must be placed on the front burner. LET YOUR FOOD BE YOUR MEDICINE AND YOUR MEDICINE YOUR FOOD. There is no guarantee that we will have as many centenarians in Dominica in time to come. Lifestyles have changed considerably for the worse.
Make Roseau a walking city devoid of vehicles except those necessary to service businesses or trolleys to transport people around and to parking areas to take buses.
Fix the sidewalks and the roads.
Add some class to this city and provide more service and you will get more visitors and business will pick up.
Some sidewalks would be nice…walking in the road sucks…
also how many playgrounds are in Dominca…and I dont just mean a field of grass\
I appreciate the suggestions but we could use some help to follow this advice
A field of grass?
Think of our culture… which one do you think Dominicans would appreciate better? A field of grass, as you call it, or a playground?
I think we can contribute without all the cynism all the time.
A field of grass… whatever that is supposed to mean….? Try doing some community service yourself.