The comments attributed to Prof Hilary Beckles of the University of the West Indies as quoted in the editorial (Minister Deyalsingh must focus on wider health problems) in a local daily deserve some scrutiny.

Beckles is said to have “noted that ‘more than 60 per cent of all the people in the region over the age of 60 either have hypertension or diabetes or both.’ “

The editorial goes on to suggest that Beckles believes that the imposition upon the enslaved people of the “extreme salt and sweet diet” has led to the population today being overweight, obese, diabetic and hypertensive. Further, it is stated that Beckles believes our ancestors contracted non-communicable diseases (NCDs) because of the diet the slave masters imposed.

Certainly BW Higman in his great work, Slave Populations of the British Caribbean: 1807-1834, observes no such outcome of the appalling diet endured by the enslaved people.

Let us draw conclusions about the health predicament now experienced by West Indians based on research. Populations of the descendants of enslaved people in Brazil, the West Indies and in southern North America have been studied. Genetically, the participants were traced to the same regions of West and Central Africa. The rates of diabetes, hypertension and obesity were studied.

Bearing in mind that the diets of enslaved people in these areas of the New World would have been similarly inadequate, it is really interesting to note the different levels of NCDs found 20 years ago (the date of the research) among the descendants. The levels were far higher among the participants measured in the West Indies.

There is no doubt that lifestyle diseases are a scourge of our people today, but as recently as 50 years ago this was not the situation. Look at photographs from the TT of the 1970s and you do not see bulging, fat, unhealthy people everywhere. But then, neither do you see highly refined, junk or fast food available within metres of the people in the photos. It wasn’t there.

Certainly there are culprits involved in this health crisis, but this time they are not to be dug up from 300 years ago. They are with us today everywhere. Identify a problem accurately and then, possibly, it can be solved.

A BLADE

Mason Hall