We were absolutely delighted that our recent achievement of being shortlisted for the World Health Organisation Health for All Film Festival was featured on the ZIZ News on 1st April 2022.
We’d like to say a big thank you to ZIZ for this feature and if you missed it, you can watch it in the clip below.
Meet the Willbuts, a short animation depicting how sugar-sweetened beverages and an unhealthy diet impact a typical Caribbean family, has been shortlisted for the World Health Organisation (WHO) Health for All Film Festival.
The WHO Health for All Film Festival is held annually to demonstrate how creative media is being mobilised for health promotion and education. The festival invites submissions from patients, health workers, health activists, NGOs, public institutions and professional filmmakers of short films on a wide range of health-related topics, including non-communicable diseases (NCDs), mental health, disability, and communicable diseases as well as environmental and social determinants of health, such as gender-based violence, road safety and pollution.
Meet the Willbuts was submitted by Lake Health and Wellbeing, a public health NGO in St. Kitts and Nevis. The animation was shortlisted under the very short film category for conveying messages about NCDs and the need for families to improve their diets for better health outcomes. Lake Health and Wellbeing’s submission was recognised out of over 1000 submissions from 110 countries – a major achievement that places St. Kitts and Nevis on the global stage for health promotion and education.
The winners will be announced in May; in the meantime, WHO is encouraging the public to get involved by selecting a film that they would like to champion and then commenting on its story or topic before May 10, 2022. Comments can be posted on social media using the hashtag #Film4Health or through the WHO’s YouTube playlists available on the festival’s website. Some comments from the public will be featured during the Health for All Film Festival’s virtual awards ceremony in mid-May.
Meet the Willbuts was produced as part of Lake Health and Wellbeing’s You’re Sweet Enough campaign which aims to tackle the high rate of non-communicable diseases locally and regionally by encouraging the public to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Specifically, the campaign focuses on encouraging the public to reduce their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and consume water instead.
Dr Fanta Waterman, a board member of Lake Health and Wellbeing, said:
“With campaigns like You’re Sweet Enough, Lake Health and Wellbeing continuously demonstrates its commitment to making health literacy accessible, actionable and fun for all. This will only help to improve the health outcomes of people living in this region – and now, globally! I am so proud to be affiliated with this organisation and am glad many others will get to see this animation about how to maintain one’s health.”
Maisha Hutton, Executive Director of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, stated that:
“We’re extremely delighted that one of our civil society members has been shortlisted for the WHO Health for All Film Festival. This highlights that civil society can occupy the tech-innovation space to reach the public with important public health messages. This is a major achievement for the Caribbean and showcases the talent and creativity that exists in our region.”
Finally, one of Lake Health and Wellbeing’s main project partners, the Ministry of Health, said:
“The Ministry of Health is grateful for the partnership cultivated with Lake Health and Wellbeing as one of the leading organisations dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of our local, regional and now global community. The You’re Sweet Enough campaign has generated conversations regarding healthy drinking and the importance of consuming adequate water. As a civil society organisation, their aim is to contribute to the improvement of public health. Therefore, their positive influence is having a profound impact on the healthy decisions made by members of our society.”
Every year, the 4th March is set aside as World Obesity Day and this year the theme was ‘Everybody Needs to Act.’
Obesity is defined by the World Health Organisation as ‘abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health.’ Today, obesity is one of the major global health challenges that we face with 800 million people across the world being affected. Those affected by obesity are at an increased risk of developing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease and hypertension and it can also negatively impact mental health. Additionally, obesity itself is seen as a non-communicable disease.
The cause of obesity is multi-faceted and complex. A variety of factors such as genetic risk, biology, an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, mental health and the environment all contribute to the development of obesity. Therefore, to tackle obesity a comprehensive, all-of-society approach is required i.e. ‘Everybody Needs to Act’
In St. Kitts and Nevis, we have not escaped the reach of obesity. Like many Caribbean countries our obesity rates are high and one of the highest in the world. Research has shown that 45% of adults and 26% of children in St Kitts and Nevis are obese, and this is contributing to the high rate of NCDs in the Federation. Sadly, data shows that NCDs contribute to 63% of deaths in St Kitts and Nevis and 83% of hospitalisations. To improve the health of our nation action is required and, therefore, on World Obesity Day, led by the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, we joined civil society organisations from across the region to call on Caribbean leaders to introduce evidence-based healthy food policies. These include:
These policies have been shown to facilitate healthy behaviours and contribute to the creation of a healthy food environment, in short, these policies make it easy for the public to be healthy.
Also, as part of World Obesity Day, we hosted a childhood obesity webinar entitled ‘Community-Based Approaches to Tackling Childhood Obesity.’ This webinar aimed to showcase the work of CSOs in St Kitts and Nevis and explore the lessons we can learn from these efforts. Featured in this webinar were:
This was a very informative event that highlighted the important role that civil society plays in tackling important public health issues. If you missed this event, you can watch the recording below.
On 16th Feb 2022, our Advocacy and Research Officer, Isalean Phillip, was the featured guest on the Legendary Talk Show on Nevis’ 2020 Vision Radio.
During this interview Isalean discussed NCDs, our You’re Sweet Enough campaign and many other interesting topics.
If you missed this interview, you can listen to the recording by clicking on the picture below.
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As part of our You’re Sweet Enough campaign, we hosted a virtual dance competition and last week, we had a great time presenting the winners of the competition with their prizes.
It was so rewarding to not only see the excitement of all the children as they received their prizes but to also hear them singing our jingle and remembering the core message of our campaign.
We are very grateful to Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine for their generous donation of laptops, tablets, projects and watercoolers as prizes. The kids loved them! Additionally, we would like to thank the Curriculum Development Unit at the Ministry of Education for partnering with us for this fun and engaging campaign activity.
Congratulations to all our winners. You did a great job!.
On 1st January 2022, popular soca artist Patrice Roberts released the video for her new song, Mind Your Business. We listened with great interest when the song started and we heard the catchy chorus of ‘Drink Water and Mind Your Business’ and thought with pleasant surprise: ‘Wow! Now that’s different!’
For us, this song was well-timed because, for the past year, we have been running a public health campaign entitled ‘You’re Sweet Enough.’ This campaign aims to educate the public about the health impact of consuming too many sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) as research has shown that the overconsumption of these types of beverages is linked to weight gain, obesity and the development of non-communicable diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and hypertension.
A major part of our campaign focuses on encouraging the public to reduce their SSB consumption and to drink water instead. And, in order to encourage this behaviour change, we have explored various avenues including composing a catchy jingle, utilising animation, hosting public engagement events and advocating for evidence-based health policies that have been shown to be effective at reducing the public’s consumption of SSBs; policies such as an SSB tax, restricting the sale and marketing of SSBs in and around schools and front of package warning labels. Whilst this all-encompassing approach is making a difference, we are competing with the high volume of marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages, and there is a need to see how these messages can be balanced with more healthy lifestyle messages in mainstream media. In the Caribbean region, one way to do this is to use music to reach a wide audience as music, particularly soca music, is ingrained in our culture.
Therefore, through our jingle, we worked with local artist Dejour, who provided the vocals for our jingle, to help amplify our campaign message in a fun and engaging way. Through music, we were able to reach all age groups and genders, and we were able to extend the message further through dance. In essence, we were able to link a positive health message to ‘coolness’ and, through our ‘catchy’ jingle, the healthy drinking message of our campaign was remembered by our audience with members of the public anecdotally reporting that they remembered the jingle when they were making beverage purchases or they sang the jingle to their children to encourage them to select water.
In order to build on this success, we need more positive health messages in the mainstream that amplify our healthy drinking message. Enter: ‘Drink Water and Mind You Business’ by Patrice Roberts.
As mentioned previously, we were very surprised, and pleasantly so, by Patrice Roberts’ new song. We were surprised because, historically, when we explore the messages of mainstream music, when it comes to lifestyle habits, the messages predominantly promote unhealthy behaviours. Specifically, when we look at drinking messages in music, many songs promote the consumption, and most times, the overconsumption of alcohol. For example, a study conducted by the Boston School of Public Health reviewed 720 songs from Billboard Magazine’s year-end charts from 2009 to 2011 and found that 23% of songs mentioned alcohol and that urban music (rap, hip hop and R&B – the genres of music that we are more likely to listen to in the Caribbean) had the highest percentage of alcohol mentions, with 38% of these songs referencing alcohol. Additionally, when looking at Caribbean music, a Guyanese study reported that 37% of Guyanese chutney songs contain references to alcohol. Music is a powerful influential tool and research has shown that songs containing references to alcohol have a direct impact on the public’s alcohol consumption.
With this being said, we can see that music artists have an important role to play when it comes to promoting healthy habits. Through responsible songwriting and music video creation, they can positively influence the behaviour of their fans and improve their health and wellbeing. Let’s take a look at Patrice Roberts’ new song as an example. Since 1st January 2022, this song has garnered almost half a million views on YouTube and since this time Patrice Roberts has been encouraging her fans to drink water and stay hydrated.
Patrice Roberts’ fans, in turn, have responded positively and have stated that, indeed, they too will be drinking more water this year in direct response to this new song.
“Imma sit back, drink water And mind my business!!”
“For de New Year I gon drink water and mind my business.”
“Water is life…..drinking water and minding my business.”
“Water (check), minding my business (been doing that all my life). Sounds about right to me. Great song!”
It’s early days and this isn’t too scientific, but we can see from a quick perusal of Patrice Roberts’ social media platforms that the song has had a large reach, has acted as a reminder to her fans to select water as their drink of choice this year and has created an intention amongst her fans to drink more water.
As the year progresses, we hope that more artists will make the decision to promote healthy habits amongst their fan base as for too long the music industry has glamourised negative behaviour.
We were delighted to join the In Ya Kitchen team, and members of the St Kitts Health Promotion Unit and Nevis School Meals Programme to share a few health tips to brighten the holidays. Check out this fun, informative video below.
On 4th December 2021, we hosted a virtual event to announce the winners of the You’re Sweet Enough School Dance Competition.
This competition was a collaboration with the Curriculum Development Unit of the Ministry of Education in St. Kitts, and participants had to learn the official You’re Sweet Enough dance, record themselves performing the dance to the You’re Sweet Enough jingle and then upload the recording to the competition’s webpage for a public vote.
We were absolutely delighted with the engagement from schools. We received 28 entries and were so impressed with the creativity, video editing and enthusiasm of all those who entered the competition. Additionally, they were very effective at communicating the message of the jingle of encouraging everyone to reduce their sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and to drink water instead.
The winners of the competition are listed below and you can watch a recording of our short winners’ announcement event below too.
On November 29, 2021 as part of the annual mock parliament sitting, the St. Kitts National Youth Parliament Association (SKNYPA) debated a resolution to adopt a national sugar-sweetened beverage policy. The debate took place in parliament chambers and followed formal protocols of government business according to the standing orders of the National Assembly.
The resolution to adopt a national SSB Policy was tabled by the government benches and spoke to the following initiatives:
While members of the opposition commended the objective of the resolution as an effort to combat NCDs and address rising rates of obesity among children and youth, debaters presented arguments for improving the policy, noting that approaches to implementation must be holistic. The opposition spoke to the interests of industry with special considerations for micro-business vendors, who ought to be consulted and engaged in the process of change to provide and sell healthier beverage alternatives.
The debate between sides was lively and concluded with the resolution being passed with a simple majority. To view the debate and hear the arguments presented, check out the video below.
In our latest episode of Sweet Talk, our Advocacy and Research Officer, Isalean Phillip has an interesting and informative discussion with Dr Marissa Carty, the NCD Coordinator at the Ministry of Health in St Kitts, about fiscal policies to tackle non-communicable diseases, specifically an SSB tax.
