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A healthy treat
Dr. Basil Springer reviews the Heart and Stroke
Foundation of Barbados’ Healthy Lifestyles Seminar, Healthy
Lifestyles Living – Keeping fit for 2007, which was held at
Sherbourne Conference Centre on Thursday July 6th 2006. Speakers
were Mr. Tony Marshall, whose topic was Cricket World Cup – A
Great Opportunity, Dr. Colin Alert who looked at Physical
Activity and Health in Barbados, Dr. Adrian Lorde spoke on
Skipping To Keep Fit and Professor Henry Fraser invited the
audience to Live Like You Love Life.
Professor Trevor Hassell was the guest speaker at
lunchtime.
In my ‘book’, the purpose of life is to
create happiness and avoid pain for oneself and all those within
one’s sphere of influence. This is the ideal. In my experience,
one will never make a perfect score because of the complexity of
the human being manifested by one’s physical, intellectual,
spiritual and emotional needs. I will provocatively state that
the purpose of life is to accumulate wealth, but will hastily
add that the real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be
worth if you lost all your money. We must therefore focus on
holistic wealth, on the comprehensive development of the human
being.
One important element of holistic wealth is
good health; it is the secret of long life. All those who missed
last the Twelfth Healthy Lifestyle Seminar mounted by The Heart
& Stroke Foundation of Barbados Inc. and sponsored by Sagicor
General Insurance Inc., missed a treat.
The tone was set by the President, Mr. Dru
Symmonds SCM, J.P., who intimated that the Foundation was deeply concerned
regarding the heart health of our nation. He advised that the
organization is particularly conscious of the effects of ill
health to everyone involved in its productive sectors, and
importantly so, its leaders who are so readily susceptible to
the pitfalls of obesity and the natural occurrence of stress;
two specific emphases embraced in the seminar.
Mr. Tony Marshall, long standing cricket
administrator, pointed out that the team that wins ICC CWC 2007
is likely to be one that has paid special attention to its
fitness regime. It was interesting to hear his opinion that
sustained success in cricket was also highly correlated with
intellectual capital.
This is similar to the statistically upheld hypothesis that,
among all the nations in the world, GDP per capita is highly
correlated to tertiary educational output per capita, a measure
of intellectual capital. He called for a National Day of
Fitness, where all Barbadians would consciously participate in a
physical fitness event.
In the discussion that ensued I drew the
attention of the gathering to the evolution of Cricket Legends
of Barbados Inc. This is a company the shareholders of which are
the living retired Barbadian cricketers who have represented the
West Indies at cricket. My vision is that there will be benefit
in a strategic alliance between the Foundation and the Legends.
This was corroborated in the feedback from the interactive
discussion that followed Tony’s presentation.
Dr. Colin Alert, Family Physician and Associate Lecturer in
Family Medicine, UWI made a very humourous presentation on
Health and Physical Activity in Barbados .
He observed that "We have more doctors and we are spending more
money on health, but at the same time more people are dying and
suffering". We are a lazy (and licorish) nation and these habits
are killing us. He added that there is little evidence that the
Government is helping us, therefore each individual must accept
a lifelong responsibility for keeping fit.
He admonished us to immediately adopt an
exercise plan.
Dr. Adrian Lorde, Family Physician and
Vice-President, Barbados Sports Medicine Association made a
presentation on “Skipping to get fit…quick.” He pointed out that
most persons complain that they have little time to exercise or
to eat properly. Skipping, formerly practised by boxers and
children in primary schools, is one way to obtain adequate
exercise and gain tremendous benefits in a short time period.
Ten minutes of skipping has the same health benefit as a
45-minute hard run.
Skipping, he noted, is an excellent form of
cardiovascular exercise that requires little equipment. He
advised on a warm up and cool down period.
His session ended with a skipping
“competition” which revealed an interesting mixture of style and
efficiency among those who were brave enough to use the
high-tech skipping ropes presented to each participant by
Sagicor.
Professor Henry Fraser advised the gathering
that Barbados leads the Caribbean in an epidemic that can only
be described as “Slow motion mass suicide”. The epidemic is one
of chronic non-communicable diseases, sometimes known as the
life style diseases – or the obesity related diseases. He
concluded that there are many aspects to healthy living, but the
most powerful mantra can be captured in four simple thoughts and
eight words: Eat less, Exercise more, Laugh often, Forgive
always. And the simple verse: Give before, Give after, Give
more, Give laughter.
Prof. Trevor Hassell, President,
Inter-American Heart Foundation gave the luncheon address on
“Keeping fit and maintaining heart wellness – today, 2007 and
beyond”.
He posed the questions: “What do we know?
What has been achieved? What are the further challenges? How do
we tackle what else needs to be done? He gave a litany of good
advice on The Way Forward to government, organizations,
companies, NGOs, the H&SFB and the individual before concluding
by quoting the German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “Knowing
is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do”.
Live like you love life, stay healthy!
(Dr. Basil Springer GCM is Change-Engine
Consultant, Caribbean Business Enterprise Trust Inc. -
www.cbet-inc.org)
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