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Bird Rock, St Kitts, St Kitts and Nevis, West Indies

info@lakehealthandwellbeing.com

+1 869 765 8702

Category: News

Our My Healthy Heroes Badges and Fridge Magnets Are Now Available for Sale
My Healthy Heroes NewsNews

Our My Healthy Heroes Badges and Fridge Magnets Are Now Available for Sale

We’re happy to announce that our My Healthy Heroes badges and fridge magnets are now available at Best Way Pharmacy in St Kitts.

These badges and fridges magnets are a great keepsake for children and act as a  reminder for kids of what they should and shouldn’t be eating as part of a healthy diet. We’ve tried to use a bit of humour with these items and hope it’ll put a little smile on children’s faces.

Our My Healthy Heroes program aims to educate and empower children to make healthy choices by tapping into their creativity to highlight the importance of a healthy lifestyle in a fun and engaging way.

At the beginning of the year, we ran a 6-week pilot of our My Healthy Heroes program with fourth-graders from St Kitts. This pilot project aimed to test our resources and characters (Healthy Heroes, Sugary Drinks Assassins and Junk Food Villains) and determine whether our approach would be effective at educating children about healthy eating and more importantly facilitate a change in their behaviour.

One of the items we tested with children during our pilot was our badges, and they were a hit. Children wore the badges to the sessions every week and did their best to win more by answering questions about healthy eating, it was fun.

If you’d like to find out more about our My Healthy Heroes project, you can read about our pilot here.

So, if you’d like a fun trinket for your children or students, then please do visit Best Way Pharmacy in St Kitts (near the cinema) and pick up a badge or fridge magnet. Additionally,  bulk orders are available for health awareness events and for use in the classroom if you’re a teacher. For more information, please email us

Finally, we’re hoping to begin work on the next phase of our project in a couple of months and more information will be made available about this soon.

SKN Moves Anniversary
Caribbean MovesNewsNon-communicable diseases

SKN Moves Anniversary

On August 9th 2019, the Ministry of Health in St. Kitts and Nevis, in collaboration with the Office of the Prime Minister, officially launched St. Kitts & Nevis (SKN) Moves.

This initiative is part of the Caribbean Moves program which seeks to tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by focusing on healthy eating, physical activity, and age-appropriate health checks.

August 9th 2020, marks the first anniversary of the launch and the Ministry of Health’s Health Promotion Team is engaging in a week of activities from Saturday 8th to Friday 14th August 2020.

Events include:

  • SKN Moves Health Walk – Saturday, August 8th at 5:30 am – Caribbean Cinemas to Frigate Bay Lawn
  • SKN Moves Virtual Fitness Fest – Monday August 10th – Friday 14th at 6am & 6pm
  • SKN Moves Health Fair – Friday, August 14th from 9am – 4pm- Independence Square

Everyone is invited to take part in this celebration so please do come out, take part and get moving. We’ll see you there!

Recording of GFA’s Fibroids and COVID-19 Webinar Now Available
FibroidsNews

Recording of GFA’s Fibroids and COVID-19 Webinar Now Available

On Saturday 18th July 2020, we were delighted to have assisted with the Global Fibroids Alliance’s first event which was a webinar on Fibroids and COVID-19. This webinar aimed to explore the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic may be having on women with fibroids and discussed what women can do to improve their physical and mental health during this challenging period.

Speakers on the day included:

  • Dr Fanta Waterman, Managing Director, Serrette Brown Research and Consulting LLC who provided an overview of COVID-19, the latest information with regards to the pandemic, fibroids management during lockdowns and quarantine and re-opening considerations.
  • Muku Qes Ua, Psychotherapist, Herbalist and Homeopath who discussed natural and holistic approaches to managing fibroids
  • Olivia Haltman, Integrative Humanistic Counsellor, OH Counselling Services who discussed emotions, fibroids and the lockdown and highlighted the emotional impact of fibroids, how this intersects with the emotional impact of COVID-19 and strategies for coping and improving mental health.

If you missed the webinar, you can watch the recording below and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to send the Global Fibroids Alliance an email.

To keep informed of the work of GFA and to be alerted of future events, you can sign up to their newsletter here.

We Publish Our My Healthy Heroes Pilot Report
Childhood Obesity NewsMy Healthy Heroes NewsNews

We Publish Our My Healthy Heroes Pilot Report

Today, we are delighted to publish the report of our My Healthy Heroes pilot project. This project ran from February to March 2020 and aimed to test our approach to promoting healthy eating in children.

Through our My Healthy Heroes project, we aim to educate and empower children to make healthy choices by tapping into their creativity to highlight the importance of a healthy lifestyle.

Our pilot was important in helping us test our resources and characters (Healthy Heroes, Sugary Drinks Assassins and Junk Food Villains) with children and teachers to see if we could successfully engage children and educate them about healthy eating, and more importantly, facilitate a change in their behaviour.

Although our project ended slightly early because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was very successful and demonstrated that with a little creativity, we can get children excited about healthy eating, to learn and retain important information about the harms of unhealthy eating, to reflect on their lifestyles,  to attempt to change behaviour and to rethink their food choices.

The main lessons learnt from this project were:

  1. Children accept that they should be eating a healthy diet, but the depth of their knowledge of healthy eating, its benefits and the harms of unhealthy eating is low and therefore means this acceptance doesn’t translate into a change in behaviour or a motivation to eat a healthy diet.
  2. The major factor that impacts children’s choice of what to eat, if they are given a choice, is taste, but children also recognise that some foods are more accessible and that the significant amount of marketing of unhealthy foods impacts their choices.
  3. Students’ favourite foods vary. They selected both fast food and home-cooked meals as their favourite foods, and these were selected mostly based on taste. This means there is the opportunity to encourage more healthy eating if parents, schools and vendors explore creative ways to prepare healthy foods that children would deem to be tasty.
  4. Children and parents overestimate how healthy children’s diets are; in reality, children are not eating a healthy balanced diet. Students are not eating the recommended 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables, and students are eating more unhealthy foods than they realise.
  5. Children need constant reminders and nudges to make healthy choices.
  6. A comprehensive marketing strategy for healthy food is required to compete with the marketing of unhealthy foods.
  7. Creative approaches are needed to engage children and educate them on healthy eating. Our project has shown characters that children can relate to and are considered ‘cool’ will be effective at reaching children and creating an intention to change their behaviour.
  8. Parents need support regarding time, knowledge and ability with healthy food preparation, and schools can compensate by ensuring there is a healthy environment in schools—healthy breakfast, lunch and snacks available in and around schools.
  9. Healthy eating should be a core part of the curriculum in school and go beyond conveying simple facts; the approach should be interactive to create a long-lasting change in attitudes and behaviours towards food.

You can download our full report below to find out more about this project. In the meantime, we will be using the learnings from this work to develop this project further.

We would like to thank the Taiwan ICDF for funding this work and providing invaluable advice and support throughout this project.

Upcoming Webinar on Fibroids and COVID-19
FibroidsNews

Upcoming Webinar on Fibroids and COVID-19

We’re delighted to invite all women who have been affected by fibroids to the Global Fibroids Alliance’s first event, a webinar on Fibroids and COVID-19.

The Global Fibroids Alliance is a new network of organisations working together to raise awareness of fibroids and advocate for the changes that are required to improve the health, wellbeing and quality of care for all women affected by fibroids. Want to find out more? You can visit our campaign page from last year here

This webinar will be held on Saturday 18th July at 11am US Eastern Time (4pm GMT) and aims to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic may be affecting women with fibroids and will discuss what women can do to improve their physical and mental health during this challenging period.

Speakers will include:

Dr Fanta Waterman, Managing Director, Serrette Brown Research and Consulting LLC.

Muku Qes Ua, Psychotherapist, Herbalist and Homeopath

Olivia Haltman, Integrative Humanistic Counsellor, OH Counselling Services

You can register for this webinar here and if you have any questions, please email GFA2020@mail.com

We look forward to seeing you then.

Our Second Fibroids Infographic
FibroidsNews

Our Second Fibroids Infographic

Following on from the publication of our ‘Fibroids and COVID-19’ infographic, we’re delighted to notify you of the publication of our latest fibroids infographic.  

This infographic, entitled ‘What You Need to Know About Fibroids’ covers what fibroids are, the different types of fibroids, risk factors, symptoms and tips for women living with fibroids.

The aim of this resource is to provide women with a simple overview of fibroids and to address the concern that women expressed to us about the lack of accurate reliable information on this important women’s health issue.

We had the pleasure of working with newly qualified doctor, Sofia Miah, to create this resource. Sofia carried out some desk-based research in order to prepare the content and designed the infographic.

Sofia’s experience of working on this short project highlighted some very important lessons for those working in the healthcare field, with Sofia stating that:

“As a newly qualified doctor with clinical experience in women’s health, I was shocked by the higher incidence of fibroids among African-Caribbean women and how little it is spoken about in medical education and the workplace. Black women are disproportionately affected by fibroids and more likely to have hysterectomies. This is worsened by the lack of high-quality, comprehensive and accessible information out there on fibroids for patients. As healthcare professionals, we need to be more open and vocal about the impact of fibroids on patients and their quality of life. We need to be better.”

We are very grateful to Sofia for working with us on this project and to the experienced gynaecologist who reviewed the infographic. You can download the infographic below and if you have any questions or comments about this resource, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us by sending us an email

Audio Documentary: Black Pentecostals, the Pandemic and the Future of Christianity
COVID-19News

Audio Documentary: Black Pentecostals, the Pandemic and the Future of Christianity

Produced and edited by Sheila Marshall and written and presented by Robert Beckford this insightful audio documentary explores the black pentecostal church’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The documentary discusses how the church should respond to this pandemic and assesses whether the response so far has been effective. It also seeks to answer the controversial question of whether churches should get involved in political and social justice matters, and how best they can do this without compromising their beliefs and perceived role in the community. There was the feeling that the church should move beyond its comfort zone and take the lead during global emergencies and lead the drive in moving the agenda forward to benefit the black community.

The documentary also looks at the power of contemporary gospel music and explored some of the gaps in the repertoire which prevents the genre from having a significant impact during challenging times. For example, there is a lack of music that articulates the current emotions that people are feeling and the reality of people’s lives. This point was expanded into a wider point of the church overlooking the powerful emotions, stress and anxiety many are experiencing by focusing on upbeat messages. It was identified that this denial of our emotions can lead to many questioning their faith, but can also affect the mental health of black Christians in general.

We thought this was an excellent exploration of the role of the black church, which is one of the most powerful organisations in the black community but hasn’t engaged effectively with political and social issues. During the current times, where racial inequalities and injustices have been fully exposed through COVID-19’s disproportionate effect on the black community, the white privilege so boldly displayed by Amy Cooper and the brutality of police racism, the church is needed now more than ever before.

You can listen to this audio documentary below.

Better Must Come! Black Pentecostals, the Pandemic and the future of Christianity from Aniku Ltd on Vimeo.

Fibroids and COVID-19 Infographic
COVID-19FibroidsNews

Fibroids and COVID-19 Infographic

We’re delighted to announce the publication of our new ‘Fibroids and COVID-19’ infographic.

COVID-19 has created a lot of anxiety, especially for people with pre-existing health conditions. Whilst there has been a lot of information published on the impact of COVID-19 on people with various health conditions, we noticed an information gap with regards to fibroids and therefore we sought to address this.

Working with Mariana Ndrio, a second-year medical student at the UMHS in St Kitts and Nevis, we did some desk-based research to understand the possible impact of COVID-19 on women with fibroids and, based on this, provide some practical tips to help women manage during this pandemic, which experts have warned is likely to last for another 12-18 months.

Whilst carrying out her research to prepare this infographic, Mariana faced one major challenge:

 

  “As a medical student that remains generally impressed by the increasing amount of existing medical and scientific knowledge, researching gynaecological diseases such as fibroids have led me to a stark realization: that despite the high prevalence of uterine fibroids among women, not enough high-quality data is available to formulate evidence-based guidelines that address patients’ needs adequately.”

 

 

Mariana very clearly describes what we hear from women all the time when it comes to fibroids – the lack of accurate, reliable information. We have been slowly trying to address this issue by creating a set of information resources which we are improving and expanding to ensure women have the best information possible.

You can download our new fibroids infographic below and we created a list of the references we used to assist us in preparing the content for the infographic (you can find this below too). Additionally, this resource has been reviewed by Dr Oduntan, one of the District Medical Officers here in St Kitts and Nevis.

Coming soon will be a couple more infographics which will focus on various aspects of fibroids.

If you have any questions or comments about this new infographic, please do leave them in the comments section below, or if you have fibroids and would like to share the experience you’ve had during this pandemic maybe by writing an article about your experience, then please do send us an email and we’d be happy to work with you on this.

For some additional information on this topic, you can read Mariana’s recent blog post, ‘Fibroids and COVID-19: Tips of Self-Care and Managing Stress’.

Supporting Our Work

We are committed to making all our resources free and easily accessible to all those who need it. You can help us with this commitment by making a donation which will go towards the costs of producing our health information which includes the costs of design, printing and editing. You can make a donation here. Thank you for any help that you can provide. Please note that our online payments are managed by JAD Cash,  a comprehensive e-money solution for the Eastern Caribbean countries. All online payments will, therefore, be processed in Eastern Caribbean Dollars (XCD).

OH Services Upcoming Mental Health Webinars
Mental HealthNews

OH Services Upcoming Mental Health Webinars

Many of us are at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic and are experiencing a range of emotions as a result of this health crisis. If you’d like to make sense of what you’re feeling, you can join Olivia Haltman of OH Services on Saturday 25th April where she’ll be discussing the effect of COVID-19 on our mental health and how you can support yourself and others.

You can register for this webinar here

In addition to this webinar, Olivia Haltman will be delivering two free webinars as part of her “What is…?” series.

On Tuesday 28th April, Olivia will be exploring ‘What is Sexual Abuse?” This is an issue which can affect anyone and this means we need to stay well informed so we can remain as safe as possible and keep each other safe and empowered. When an experience like this happens, it is bound to drastically shift the course of someone’s life as it impacts their mental health. It can be challenging supporting survivors of sexual abuse, but a huge part of the problem is being misinformed about this issue. So, this webinar aims to bring you relevant facts, information and knowledge so you can tackle this topic with confidence.

You can register here

Next month, on 26th May, Olivia will be discussing ‘What is a Healthy Relationship?” She’ll be answering the question ‘What does a healthy relationship look and feel like?” In this webinar, you’ll analyse whether you have a healthy relationship with your partner, family, friends, employer and, most importantly, yourself.  Identifying the qualities of what a healthy relationship is crucial for our emotional wellbeing. This webinar will help you to understand why a healthy relationship is important and how you can set boundaries that will make you feel secure and safe, even when your relationships become challenging .

You can find out more about this webinar and register here

We hope you’ll be able to attend one of these interesting webinars. For more information about these events, you can contact OH Services here. 

KMT Rising’s Womb-an Series
FibroidsNews

KMT Rising’s Womb-an Series

KMT Rising is hosting a series of monthly online Zoom sessions dedicated to women’s health improvements around Fibroids.

The Womb-an Series is a safe and confidential platform for women to meet (in the comfort of your homes), to find out more about what contributes to fibroid growth and acceleration, what lifestyle choices and dietary factors impact on womb-wellness, what strategies can we incorporate into our lives to reduce fibroid symptoms, and what are the range of holistic approaches towards getting our health back into balance, and towards fibroid elimination.

The sessions will be facilitated by a qualified Holistic Health Practitioner and you will have the opportunity to ask questions regarding your own personal health challenges.

The sessions will include:

  • Understanding Fibroids (Wednesday 20th May 2020, 8.30-9.15pm)
  • Creating a space for healing the womb (Wednesday 24th June 2020, 8.30-9.15pm)
  • Holistic Strategies to Womb-Wellness (Wednesday 22nd July 2020, 8.30-9.15pm)

You can register for this series here