For Health’s Sake Let’s Increase Economic Growth – Joe Issa

Healthy Lifestyle enthusiast and philanthropist Joe Issa, has said that the general health of a nation and in particular, its under-five-year-olds should serve as a warning of how well it will fare socially and economically in the long term and the future, and Jamaica is no exception.

“When you look at health trends all over the world it is frightening to realize how badly low income countries like Jamaica are doing relative to high income countries in reducing the prevalence rate of stunting, underweight and overweight,” says Issa, pointing out that the gap between high and low income countries is too wide and should be narrowed with higher social and economic growth.

Issa, who volunteers books, computers and even air condition units to schools in St. Mary and St. Ann, where he is a past president of the chamber of commerce, says the opportunity cost of a sick workforce is massive loss of production and miss-opportunity for economic growth, to say nothing of the burden on the health sector and tax payers. “When we see the national stunting rate decreasing we know then that conditions in the socio-economy are improving.”

According to World Health Organization (WHO), stunted growth, which means a low height-for-age “reflects a process of failure to reach linear growth potential as a result of suboptimal health and/or nutritional conditions.”

Such conditions are shown to be generally associated with poor social and economic conditions in the population and “increased risk of frequent and early exposure to adverse conditions such as illness and/or inappropriate feeding practices.”

The data showed that worldwide variation of the prevalence of low height-for-age is considerable, ranging from 5% to 65% among the less developed countries

Between 1990 and 2014 child malnutrition indicators for stunting, showed a reduction in the number of children affected, from about 255 million to 159 million, with the prevalence rate reducing from 41% to 26%.

Similarly, underweight children fell from nearly 161 million in 1990 to 95 million in 2014, while the prevalence rate reduced from 25% to 16% over the period. However, overweight children which numbered 31 million in 1990 has increased to 41 million in 2014, with the percentage prevalence increasing from 6% to 7% during the time period.

The picture is even more unfavourable when it comes to stunting among children under five years old, with low income groups having a higher prevalence rate than high income groups, as well as a relatively smaller decline in the rate over a 24-year period. The prevalence rate for low income groups was 54.6% in 1990 compared with 32.6% for high income groups.

Also, whereas the prevalence rate for the low income groups fell to 37.6 between 1990 and 2014, representing a fall of 17%, the fall in the high income groups to 7.5% in 2014 represented a reduction of 25%.

The data also show that the prevalence rate of underweight (low weight to height) under-five-year-olds in low income groups was higher at 34.7% in 1990 compared with 13% for the high income groups, a difference of 21.7%. In addition, 24 years later in 2014, the rate in the low income groups had fallen to 20.4%, whereas for the high income groups the rate fell to 2.5%.

However, the overweight (high weight to height) prevalence rate in the low income groups which was 3.1% in 1990 increased to 3.4% in 2014. Similarly, the prevalence rate in the high income group increased from 5.7% to 6.3% during the same review period.

“The reductions we have seen in nearly a quarter of a century in the number of children and the prevalence rate for stunting and underweight in both low and high income groups, are indications of improved social-economic conditions over the period.

“The increase in numbers and prevalence rates for overweight children in both low and high income groups, not only reflect such improvements, but also the bad eating choices made,” said Issa, who is the founder of the Cool group of companies based in Ocho Rios, St. Ann.