The beaches are white sand, cruise ships meander through its warm azure waters and Rihanna is its global champion. But there is major trouble in Barbados’s 167 square miles 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 Kentucky Fried Chicken or the local chain Chefette 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.
