HEALTH-CUBA: Top Causes of Death Linked to Poor Eating Habits

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jan 15 2001 (IPS) - The three leading causes of death in Cuba are directly linked to the poor eating habits that leave vegetables outside the daily diet of most Cubans, and which were aggravated by food shortages caused by the decade-long economic crisis, according to nutritional studies.

Official statistics indicate that three of five deaths in this Caribbean island nation of over 11 million are due to noncontagious diseases, one of the main risk factors of which is an unbalanced diet based on traditions that favour meat and neglect fruits and vegetables.

Cardiovascular ailments, cancer and cerebrovascular disease, the top causes of mortality in Cuba, are directly related to dietary factors, experts point out.

The ideal menu of the typical Cuban of any age includes pork, steak or “picadillo” (made with ground beef), accompanied by “congri” (a spicy rice and beans dish), fried plantains and, if available, avocado, the only really popular vegetable.

What did you eat yesterday? the Cuban magazine Bohemia asked 231 people from four provinces in eastern, central and western Cuba, in a poll published in its late December issue. The survey found major socioeconomic differences, as well as serious nutritional imbalances.

One of the more worrisome of the poll’s findings was that eating habits were particularly poor among young people, partly a result of the economic crisis that plagued the island throughout the 1990s, bringing shortages of all kinds, after the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the east European socialist bloc, which maintained privileged trade relations with Cuba.

The survey found that young Cubans were more likely to eat fried foods, and that few ate vegetables and fruits, thus missing out on a fundamental source of minerals and vitamins essential to good health.

A mere 16 percent of respondents aged 15 to 20 said they had eaten salad the day before, compared to 55 percent of 21 to 59- year-olds, and 75 percent of people over 59.

“I try to convince my son how good it is to eat vegetables, but he says they are rabbit food. I don’t know where he gets those ideas,” complained María Molina, the mother of a 10-year-old boy.

Raised and educated in the years of greatest scarcity, youngsters under 20 have had limited chances to learn to eat a varied diet, which thus aggravated the habits that nutritionists blame for Cuba’s main health problems.

Studies published by the Cuban Magazine on Food and Nutrition confirmed that the main causes of the epidemic of neuropathies that swept Cuba in 1993, one of the worst years of the recession, were nutrition-related, such as a severe deficit of vitamins, especially B complex and essential amino acids.

Sources with the Health Ministry also reported an increase in cases of osteoporosis and hip fractures over the past decade, as well as a slightly higher incidence of anemia, caused by iron deficiency.

Food availability began to diminish drastically in 1990, leading to a drop in consumption of energy and nutrients per person.

In 1993, protein accounted for 10 percent of energy intake, fat accounted for 13 percent, and carbohydrates provided the remaining 77 percent.

Sugar represented 26 percent of the total energy supply, while nearly half of energy intake came from just two sources, sugar and rice, said Carmen Porrata Maury, a researcher with the Institute of Nutrition and Food Hygiene.

Meanwhile, the traditionally low level of consumption of fresh produce dropped to practically zero in the first half of the 1990s, simply because farmers stopped growing vegetables.

Today it is possible to find a relatively varied and regular supply of vegetables and fruits in the free farmers’ markets, although low- or middle-income families cannot afford the prices, which are governed by the laws of supply and demand.

The eating habits of the average Cuban can be traced as far back as the 18th and 19th centuries, when slaves were fed cornmeal, rice, beans, dried beef and the occasional vegetable (mainly tubers), while fruits and vegetables, perishable and costly, were reserved for the master’s table.

In fact, until the late 1950s, practically the only people growing vegetables in Cuba were Chinese immigrants.

“There are territories that consume relatively high amounts of vegetables,” although with “little variety” – areas where Chinese immigrants and their descendants are concentrated, said Porrata Maury.

She pointed out that the problems with the diet did not only involve “what people eat,” but also “how they eat.” She stressed the failure by most Cubans to eat a balanced diet based on the four food groups.

Many Cubans start out the day with “a deficient breakfast, in which 4.4 percent of the day’s total energy is consumed,” and end it with “an excessive dinner, representing 42.6 percent of total energy intake,” said the nutritionist.

In its 1996 World Food Survey, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported that Cubans were the world’s top consumers of sugar.

While nutritionists recommend that sugar account for just 10 percent of energy intake, it represents 26 percent in Cuba.

Experts, alarmed, warn that it will take decades to change such deeply rooted eating habits.

One of the Health Ministry’s aims within the next few years is to improve nutritional training among doctors, which is currently limited to eight hours of class-time provided as sections of biochemistry and physiology courses.

A nationwide survey on eating habits that the Health Ministry plans to carry out this year should give nutritionists the instrument they need to design a campaign to be launched in 2002, aimed at convincing the population to eat vegetables every day.

According to Porrata Maury and other nutritionists, the best diet for a long, healthy life is varied and low in fat, sugar, salt and alcohol, with a limited amount of cured, smoked, baked or fried foods, and abundant fruits, vegetables and grains.