Give children water instead of sugary drinks – Tufton
MINISTER OF Health Dr Christopher Tufton is calling for parents to get their children to drink more water as part of the fight against non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
He said there is a culture in schools, where if a student does not consume branded drinks or juices, then they are considered to be of the lower class.
It is for this primary reason, he opined, that parents tend to pack sugary drinks for their children, which are often unhealthy and can contribute to NCDs.
“Many Jamaicans feel that if they drink water with their meal, they’re actually participating in an inferior activity. Marketing has been so powerful that if you send your child to school, and they have their lunch with a glass of water while another child is having theirs with a branded sugary drink, then, as far as they are concerned, the other child is better off,” Tufton noted.
He was speaking at the NCD Prevention and Control Programme’s fifth annual review and capacity-building workshop held at the Mona Visitors’ Lodge in St Andrew on Thursday.
Tufton said that the ministry, as part of its push against NCDs, and more specifically obesity, will have to preach and recondition the minds of Jamaicans on the vir tues of drinking water.
“Jamaican tap water is one of the best in the world, so you don’t have to buy it i n that (packaged) way,” he pointed out.
The health minister noted further that the increased use of technology, coupled with inactivity, also places children at risk for NCDs.
“You take a 12-year-old now, and between the video game, the mobile phone and the computer, they don’t want to go outside anymore. They want the dinner to be brought to them or they eat what’s in a plastic bag with a whole heap of preservatives, and that ’s a challenge,” he lamented.