As the 2024 Paris Olympic Games fast approaches, the Big Soda companies will be looking to use the event and healthy sport to help promote an unhealthy product. Coca-Cola has sponsored the Olympics Games since 1928. It’s time it stopped. 

A petition urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to terminate the Coca-Cola Company’s sponsorship. Adding your voice and support to this petition will greatly increase its visibility and impact. 

It’s clear sugary beverages harm people and our planet. By accepting billions from Coca-Cola to sponsor the Olympic Games, the IOC implicitly endorses a world where health and environmental harms are “sports-washed” away, undermining commitments to use sport to create a better world. By signing this petition, you will join a large group of advocates urging the IOC to:

1. Terminate Coca-Cola’s Olympic sponsorship.
2. Commit to not accepting future sponsorship from corporations that harm public health and the environment.
3. Accept sponsorships from corporations genuinely aligned with Olympic values, such as those that promote health and sustainability.

The IOC must show the world that it is not just dedicated to talking about these values, but to truly committed to making the world a better place through sport. Your support is vital.

Image: PAHO

John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: In June 2017, McDonald’s and the Olympic Games ended a multi-decade sponsorship arrangement barely halfway through an eight-year contract extension. A key reason for the dissolution of this partnership was the consistent bad press from public health groups pointing out the International Olympic Committee’s hypocrisy: taking payment from the fast-food behemoth while espousing its commitment to health.

Image: PAHO

PAHO: Strengthening Civil Society’s Contribution to the Regional Response to NCDs. PAHO and HCC Work Together to Provide Civil Society Organizations with Advocacy Resources to Promote Legislative and Policy Changes. The Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) is the only alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs) working on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the Caribbean subregion, where countries face the highest NCD mortality rates in the Americas. 

Based in Barbados, HCC is a leading non-profit organization that works closely with regional and international partners, governments, and academia to leverage the power of civil society in the development and implementation of programs aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality associated with NCDs. 

Formed in 2008, the HCC emerged from the 2007 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government Declaration on NCDs. Its membership comprises over 65 CSOs working in health and non-health areas.

Members of the Barbados Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition and with the Hon. Davidson I. Ishmael, M.P. the Minister of State responsible for NCDs in the Ministry of Health and Wellness (4th from left)

Members of the Barbados Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition met formally for the first time with Minister of State responsible for NCDs in the Ministry of Health and Wellness. Discussions focussed on key Childhood Obesity Policies. Definitely a good discussion!

Terrence Deyalsingh, Health Minister for T&T 

Photo: Trinidad Express

Trinidad Express: Taxpayers are shouldering a significant financial burden due to diseases caused by poor lifestyle choices, with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) imposing an annual cost on the government ranging from $6 to $8 billion. 

Lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and cancer not only place a heavy financial strain on taxpayers but also stand as the leading causes of death globally.

WHO: Under the leadership of the Enhanced Well-being Unit, Department of Health Promotion, WHO, Economic and Commercial Determinants of Health programme, Department of Social Determinants of Health, WHO invites you to join us on Monday, July 31st from 14:00 – 16:00 CEST for a webinar on “Community Engagement for Addressing Commercial Determinants of Health’’.

Chaired by Professor Nicholas Freudenberg, the webinar will look at community engagement strategies to address commercial determinants of health, with a focus on addressing the practices of health-harming industries and in particular those responsible for the global noncommunicable disease epidemics. It will showcase the lessons of community engagementand explore community engagement for counteracting health-harming industry practices and influencing policy. Discussions will explore context-specific ways of translating strategies and policies into actions that enable and equip communities to stand up for health in the face of powerful opposing forces.

NCD Alliance: The annual Global Week for Action on NCDs seeks to ensure NCD prevention and management get the attention and action they deserve, everywhere, for everyone.

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as cancers, diabetes, mental health conditions and many others, are the #1 cause of death and disability worldwide. They account for 74% of all deaths and more than three out of four years lived with a disability. If no clear action is taken to reverse this trend, deaths from NCDs could rise to 52 million — or the population of South Korea — per year by 2030.

Photo: Footprint website

Footprint: The UK Government is facing renewed calls to tax sugary foods after research found the soft drinks industry levy (SDIL) has been successful in reducing sugar consumption. 

A study found that free sugars consumed from soft drinks fell by around a half in children and by a third in adults in the three years following the announcement of the SDIL in March 2016.

Related Media:

The Guardian: Children’s sugar consumption halved since tax announcement, study finds

CARPHA: The deadline for receipt of papers is December 13, 2024. 

Papers are selected based on scientific merit and relevance to the health priorities areas of the Caribbean. Submitting Authors may request oral or poster presentation but the final assignment of accepted papers will be made by the scientific review committee.

The HCC is seeking to expand our database of consultants with expertise in the area of NCD prevention and control. The HCC relies on consultants to support the implementation of our projects in the short, medium and long-term. To this end we are inviting individual consultants and consulting firms to submit CVs to the HCC. Submitted CVs will be reviewed to ensure they meet the selection criteria and if successful they will be placed in our consultant database. Please note that consultants do not need to be based in the Caribbean but must meet the selection criteria outlined. The database will be the first resource we turn to when consultancy opportunities arise.