What is it about?
The Bahamas has used consistent policy responses to address nutritional problems. After addressing the initial problems of undernutrition in the 1970s and 80s, however, overconsumption of unhealthy foods has led to a rising level of obesity which The Bahamas has faced since the early 2000s. This study forms a timeline of obesity-related health policy responses. It explores the factors which helped or hindered public health policy responses to obesity in The Bahamas over a 20-year period.
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Photo by Tom Brunberg on Unsplash
Why is it important?
We found that between 2000 and 2019, a series of national policies and community-level programmes were made to address the level of obesity. What helped was building on previous successes, working together with other sectors (like education, and farming), and getting communities to agree. What hindered was that there were issues with working with other sectors that needed to support the programmes, gaps in policies, and not having enough money for programmes. Overall, having programmes that last a very long time helps to address the level of obesity. It would be good if programmes considered gender more and also made healthy food more available and affordable for all.
Perspectives
It was a pleasure to speak with many Bahamians about obesity in the country. Their words and perspectives brought this piece to life and showed why it is important to address obesity from multiple levels at the same time.
Dr Francis K. Poitier
University of Leeds
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Impact of sustained health policy and population-level interventions on reducing the prevalence of obesity in the Caribbean region: A qualitative study from The Bahamas, Frontiers in Public Health, August 2022, Frontiers,
DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.926672.
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Resources
The prevalence of obesity in The Bahamas disaggregated by sex and year.
Bahamian national reports show a consistent increase in the prevalence of obesity in adults between 1989 and 2012. It also shows a decrease in adult prevalence rates between 2012 and 2019. There is, however, a gendered health disparity. Prevalence rates continue to increase in women up to 2019 but have decreased in men between 2012 and 2019. The years listed represent the times when data were available from reports of Bahamian national surveys.
Timeline of policy responses to the prevalence of obesity in The Bahamas
The timeline shows a range of national policies and population- and community-level interventions implemented after the 2000s. In most instances, documents did not specify how long policies were in effect, with the exceptions of The National Health Services Strategic Plan (2010–2020), The National Food and Nutrition Security Policy (2017–2022), and the National Multi-Sectoral NCD Strategy (2017–2022).
Time of policy responses and obesity prevalence rates in The Bahamas between 1971 and 2019.
The figure shows that policy responses may have led to a decrease in the prevalence of obesity between 2012 and 2019. There is, however, a gendered health disparity where the prevalence continued to increase in women during the period. This indicates to make additional progress, there is room for further interventions that consider the gender components that influence the prevalence of obesity.
Contributors
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