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Heartline Magazine July - September 2004
Children At Risk - Comments by Dru Symmonds SCM, J.P.
Children worldwide are at increasing risk of adopting
unhealthy lifestyles such as poor diets, smoking and physical inactivity,
behaviours that are major risk factors for heart disease and Stroke. This
assertion came from president of the Heart Foundation of Barbados, Dru Symmonds SCM, J.P.,
as he delivered the opening remarks at the Fifth Annual World Heart Day Lecture
presented by the HFOB at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West
Indies on Sunday, October 3, 2004. The lecture, on the topic “Children,
Adolescents and Heart Disease,” was given by cardiologist, Dr. Richard Ishmael.
Mr. Symmonds noted that this phenomenon is caused by
globalisation and urbanism. “The world continues to be a smaller place daily,”
he said, “and with the advancement of technology we are exposed to the
lifestyles and habits of communities thousands of miles away, and with it often
comes, I am afraid, the contamination of our own culture to the detriment of our
health.”
UNESCO counsels that students’ health and nutrition affects
their enrolment, retention, and absenteeism in learning institutions and is
therefore a crucial issue in efforts towards reaching the goal of Education for
all.
Emphasizing that the risk of cardiovascular disease starts
in youth, Mr. Symmonds revealed that worldwide 18 million children under five
years old are overweight, and 14 per cent of 13 – 15 year old students currently
smoke cigarettes. “Although in Barbados the smoking of cigarettes is not as
prevalent,” he said, ”we have a duty to remain vigilant and ensure that our
children and wards are educated about the dangers to their health and their
future by this scourge and the necessity to cultivate the practise of heart
healthy living.”
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