Obesity growing rapidly
2001-11-28 13:21
New Zealand - A move away from traditional diets toward more fatty western-style foods and a lack of exercise has made Pacific
islanders the fattest people in the world, the International
Obesity Taskforce said on Wednesday.
"The Pacific is the world's capital of obesity," taskforce
public affairs director Neville Rigby said, and women are the main victims of the acceleration of it in the past quarter century.
Latest figures showed 55 percent of Tongan women, 74 percent of
Samoan women and 77 percent of men and women living in Nauru are
obese.
Obesity, defined as an unhealthy amount of body fat, is a global
epidemic that until recently has gone mostly unrecognised, the
taskforce said.
In some Pacific states, like Samoa, between 60 and 80 percent of
the adult population can be classified as obese by international
standards, Rigby said.
"That is a dramatic change in a very short time. That reflects
dietary change and also a change in lifestyles in terms of physical activity," he said.
"It is not about being rich and well fed. Obesity is most often
related to poverty, low economic status, exclusion from the health system," Rigby said.
The result is "tremendous" rates of diabetes, kidney disease,
rampant heart disease and high levels of treatment for these
obesity-related diseases which are imposing huge economic burdens
on national health programmes of small island states.
"In the Caribbean and many African countries (obesity) is
disregarded, ignored, neglected. It is just taken for granted that a poor, middle-aged woman gets fat and then dies from diabetes," he added.
He said the obesity epidemic in the Pacific also followed
cultural patterns in many islands which put a significant value on people being large.
"In many cultures the idea of obesity in the past has been
almost prized as a sign of health and wealth in more traditional
communities," he said.
This has been compounded by a massive change in the quality of
the diet in the past generation, with "the high fat, high sugar
content ... quite different from what they used to have."
Rigby, in New Zealand for the Commonwealth Health Ministers
meeting, said the rates of obesity in New Zealand are also rising
at an alarming rate.
"New Zealand hasn't been spared the obesity epidemic," he said.
"Never in the history of the human race have so many people been so fat."
Health Ministry figures released on Tuesday showed 15 percent of
New Zealand men and 19 percent of women are obese.
The condition affected 27 percent of indigenous Maori women and
47 percent of Pacific Island women living in New Zealand - a 50
percent increase from 1989.
In developed countries children were exercising less and
spending more time in front of the television and on computer
games.
"Childhood obesity is rising everywhere because children are
becoming less active but have more calories than they need," he
said.
"The amount of hours spent watching TV has a direct effect on
the obesity of children," Rigby added. - AP
- SAPA