The fightback against Big Sugar

A legacy of colonialism, fast food and a high-fat diet have led to a diabetes and blood pressure pandemic. Can the government change things?

- Sarah Boseley

The beaches are white sand and cruise ships meander through its warm azure waters. But there is trouble in Barbados's 430 sq km of paradise. You could call it obesity, you could call it heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. Or you could call it the postcolonial predations of Big Food and Big Sugar.

Barbados, like other small island developing states, is fighting for its people's survival. On this beautiful island, people wander daily into danger, swinging two-litre flasks of sugary drinks such as Coca-Cola as they step out of their cars, buying local fast food from the back of a van for lunch and queueing at KFC in the evening. The blessings of the modern convenience world have been visited upon small islands, with the result that more than half their people are dying prematurely from heart and lung conditions, cancer, diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Blame is being laid at the door of the food industry. The world's 57 small island developing states cannot grow enough fresh food for their populations and, as the climate crisis worsens, water is scarcer and storms wipe out fields of crops every year. So they are reliant on importing their food: for some islands as much as 90% of it. And much of what they import is ultra-processed food, high in calories with very little nutritional value.

This month, the World Health Organization will convene a ministerial meeting of small-island states in Barbados to forge a united response to killer NCDs and mental health.

The problems in Barbados are rooted in colonialism and slavery. People labouring on the sugar plantations were given the rejected parts of pigs. Such fatty food, heavily salted, seasoned and pickled, has become the traditional Saturday staple.