Stories

The Caribbean diet has changed drastically over the last couple of decades, transitioning from diets rich in locally grown foods to diets influenced by globalization and full of cheap, heavily marketed, processed and ultra-processed foods that are high in sugars, sodium, and trans and saturated fats. As a result, rates of overweight and obesity in the Caribbean are among the highest in the world. Most worryingly, one in every three Caribbean children is living with overweight or obesity.

We, the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC), wanted to contribute to the creation of healthier food environments for Caribbean people, including those who are most vulnerable, using a rights-based, policy-focused approach, emphasizing every consumer’s right to good health.

In alignment with regional and global recommendations, we promote a suite of comprehensive evidence-informed food policies including the octagonal front-of-package nutrition warning labelling (FOPWL). FOPWL can help all consumers quickly, easily and correctly identify foods that are high in salt, sugar and fat – empowering them with the information to make better choices for better health. Consumers have a right to know what is in their food.

Taking action

So, in March 2021, the HCC in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), UNICEF and the OECS Commission launched the regional campaign, ‘Now More than Ever: Better Labels, Better Choices, Better Health’.

Our aim was to raise awareness about the impact of childhood overweight and obesity and the regional epidemic of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), while promoting children’s right to nutritious foods.

We also wanted to mobilise support for the accelerated adoption of octagonal warning labels on the front of packaged foods, as the best way to help Caribbean citizens identify products that are high in sugars, fats and salt. The octagonal warning labels have already been introduced in Chile, Peru, Uruguay and Mexico with favourable outcomes. In Chile, for example, a comprehensive regulatory approach including octagonal food warnings resulted in a 23.7% decrease in the volume of high-sweetened beverages purchased by households[1].

We set ourselves the following campaign objectives:

• To increase public and policymaker awareness about the urgent situation of childhood overweight and obesity and diet-related NCDs in the Caribbean.
• To increase awareness among parents, guardians, children, and young people of the importance of healthy nutrition to combat childhood overweight and obesity.
• To increase public and policymaker knowledge about front-of-package warning labels as a rights-based tool to regulate obesogenic environments and tackle childhood overweight and obesity and NCDs in the Caribbean.
• To increase public and policymaker support and demand for the accelerated implementation of the CARICOM (i.e. the Caribbean Community – a group of 15 Caribbean territories) Front of Package Warning Labelling (FOPWL) standard in the Caribbean. (To find out more about this process, click here.)

The campaign ran from March 12th until April 30th, 2021 and reached many people across the Caribbean region and beyond through social media, digital media, and the radio. Our digital campaign content had almost 23 million impressions on social media and our public service announcements (PSAs) were listened to by 3 million people across the Caribbean.

Over the campaign period, we were able to build strong and diverse public health coalitions and highlight the negative actions of some industry actors while engaging supportive actors from the private sector. The regional vote for the octagonal front of package nutrition warning labelling standard was held in May 2021. The number of countries in favour of FOPWL increased to six; six countries abstained, and only three opposed the FOPWL standard.

Although not enough CARICOM member states voted to advance the specification regionally, we continue to support civil society organisations across the region in advocating for local implementation of the octagonal front-of-package nutrition warning labelling alongside a suite of other nutrition policies to create an environment where it is easier to make the healthier choice.

The next steps

On October 21st, 2021 we went on to launch a new regional campaign in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the OECS Commission and UNICEF. ‘Now More Than Ever: We Need to Protect our Children’ seeks to promote the overall health and wellbeing of children and young people and to build support for healthy environments with a focus on increased access to nutritious foods. Specifically, the campaign objectives are:

1. To increase the public and policymaker awareness about the urgent situation and consequences of childhood overweight and obesity.
2. To increase public awareness of the dangers of ultra-processed food products (UPFPs), and the importance of good nutrition and physical activity as essential parts of a child’s overall health, development, and well-being, using a child rights-based approach.

We look forward to continuing working with our partners to advocate for comprehensive national school policies as schools reopen across the Caribbean region!

Key organisations involved: Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), UNICEF, OECS Commission.

Find out more about the ‘Now More than Ever: Better Labels, Better Choices, Better Health’ campaign, and follow the Healthy Caribbean Coalition at @healthycaribbean (Twitter and Instagram), @GettheMessage (Facebook) and their website.