Poor eat­ing habits and seden­tary lifestyles are fu­elling an in­crease in di­a­betes cas­es in rur­al ar­eas of south Trinidad.

This con­cern was raised by Sher­win Ram­nar­ine, di­rec­tor of the Bar­rack­pore Dawah Foun­da­tion, dur­ing a di­a­betes out­reach clin­ic host­ed by the or­gan­i­sa­tion last Sat­ur­day at its Rochard Dou­glas Road head­quar­ters.

Ram­nar­ine ex­plained that the easy avail­abil­i­ty of in­ex­pen­sive fast food is con­tribut­ing to the preva­lence of Type 2 di­a­betes. He not­ed that pop­u­lar low-cost In­di­an del­i­ca­cies have be­come a sta­ple in many rur­al com­mu­ni­ties. The sit­u­a­tion, he said, is made worse by the lack of recre­ation­al and sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties in some ar­eas.