We Say 3
We Say 3
'The government doesn't just ban newspapers it doesn't approve of. It also bans the importation of fat-laden lamb flaps, once consumed in sickening amounts by its people as cheap meat'
Tonga's government has incurred much criticism of late, but not all its ideas deserve condemnation. On the issue of nutrition and diet, it is rather enlightened. The government doesn't just ban newspapers it doesn't approve of. It also bans the importation of fat-laden lamb flaps, once consumed in sickening, literally, amounts by its people as cheap meat.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
Now the official hoping to persuade Tongans to play it safe by avoiding unhealthy food, is wondering whether the government should go a step further and slap a hefty tax on imports of unhealthy food as part of attempts to quell the rate at which Tongans are becoming victims of diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.
The hopeful purpose of the tax would be to make junk food too expensive to indulge in.
While according to the World Health Organisation about 1000 million people don't get enough to eat, governments in Britain, United States and Australia are becoming aghast at the way their children are becoming pathetic tubbies, addicted to eating fast food and sugary soft drink, and restricting exercise to stabbing the keys of their cell phones and personal computers.
Australia's government hopes to stop the rot by instructing schools to push their pupils to exercise more. It should take a leaf from Tonga's book. Cigarette advertising has been eliminated, almost. So why not also ban the heavy psychological attacks used by advertisers of junk food and drinks to persuade young minds that burgers, colas and colourfully dyed particles of puffed up rice are good for them?
In the Pacific Islands, the diet/nutrition/obesity/diabetes/heart disease debate is not new. It featured as an Islands Business cover story, Diet of Death, nearly 20 years ago. Such useful concerned agencies as the Secretariat of the Pacific Community's health service has attacked the creep of fatness into island lifestyles for four decades. Oh yes, some Pacific Islanders, particularly Polynesians, are very big, as distinct from being tubby, as nature intended, just as Africa's pygmies are naturally very small. However, nature didn't intend the Pacific's giants to carry the overburden of junk food generated excess flesh that now rightly alarms Tonga's government.
Accompanying ravages inflicted by hypertension, heart trouble, diabetes and other lifestyle associated health worries now annually load all Pacific Islands countries with tens of millions of dollars of what could be avoidable health costs.
Fiji's health ministry has just been shocked by a research by a local company, FijiCare Insurance, which shows that the life expectancy of Fijian men has dropped below 50 due to heavy smoking, alcohol consumption and unnecessarily poor diet.
Many islanders are increasingly sedentary‹no thanks to television‹and that is compounding the diet problem.
The SPC's nutrition experts did a survey of the value of the so-called "sports drinks." Guess what came out first, and way ahead? What else but good old coconut juice. Taro, cassava, sweet potato, yam, breadfruit and plantains are far superior, nutritionally, to imported rice, bread and pasta, the SPC says.
All those advertisement for noodles, well, nutritionally, how low does one wants to go?
Here's what is on the SPC death wish list: Pizza, fried potatoes, chips, doughnuts, ramen, cake, tinned fruit in juice, tinned vegetables, turkey tails, spam, mutton flaps, bully beef, hotdogs, and condensed milk.
Sadly, it appears that little success is being achieved in trying to wean Pacific Islanders from the Diet of Death. Some islands communities will perhaps succeed eating themselves to death long before any risk of having their islands submerged by the possible rising level of the sea. That's if HIV/AIDS doesn't get them first.
