Skipping breakfast: bad for you, bad for the environment!!

By Ryan Haas
Reporter-SKNVibes.com

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - BAGS, bottles and wrappers can be found crammed into many of the crevices and hidden nooks around St. Kitts, and one local expert speculates that this unsightly waste originated from the empty breakfast tables across the island.

“Most of the litter in St. Kitts seems to come from when people buy snacks during the day,” Wilmon McCall, Operations Manager on the Solid Waste Management Corporation, told SKNVibes.

“This occurred to me one morning when I was observing Baker’s Corner and there were 30-40 persons who passed me with a drink in one hand and a paper bag in the other,” McCall said. “I knew then and there that this was where my garbage was being generated; it is our poor eating habits.”

McCall said he then began to inquire of people what they did with their waste when they finished eating. “Most people knew who I was and said they would place it in a bin, but one person told me, ‘Boy, I just find a corner somewhere and get rid of it.’ I think this is actually the case most of the time.”

Aside from damage to the land and marine environment, attracting stray animals and other environmental concerns, McCall said people may be unaware of how this type of littering could affect their personal health. 

Dr. Patrick Martin, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for St. Kitts and Nevis, confirmed McCall’s notion. “My observation has been that there is a lot of people walking, eating and dropping, which has two different health aspects to consider.

“The first is that litter attracts all kinds of disease-carrying vermin and insects. The trash also clogs drains and ghauts, which creates a breeding ground for virus-carrying mosquitoes. It also creates quite a foul odor,” said Martin.

The CMO stated that skipping breakfast was the likely cause for people’s snacking and the related excess litter. He also said that people open themselves up to a number of health problems when eating on the run.

“Walking and eating is never recommended. It is much more advantageous to eat while sitting in a quiet, stress-free environment. When a person walks and eats they do not take the proper time to chew their food and this leads to several problems.

“Most commonly, people ‘have a gas’, or indigestion, when they eat too fast. This can be extremely uncomfortable for the person, and I have even seen people with indigestion go to the hospital because they believed they were having a heart attack,” he said.

Heartburn is not the only health risk, however, as constipation and the body’s inability to absorb vital nutrients from poorly chewed food were also cited as side effects of eating in a hurry.
 
“The best thing a person can do for themselves is to take the time to eat a hearty breakfast every morning,” said Martin. “It sets the stage for the rest of the day and a person should view lunch and dinner as nothing more than ‘top-ups’ to that foundation built at breakfast. This means that a person needs to plan for time to prepare the meal and 40-45 minutes to eat.”

McCall said he hopes people would take the environmental and health concerns attributable to snacking very seriously. “The most important thing that we should be aware of is that these are the types of problems that can be avoided by simply changing our habits,” he said in closing.