Posted on 02/11/2008 6:54:44 PM PST by blam
Spam at heart of South Pacific obesity crisis
By Nick Squires In Sydney
Last Updated: 12:32pm GMT 11/02/2008
It was lampooned by Monty Python and spurned by British shoppers, but Spam is fuelling a "raging epidemic" of diabetes, strokes and heart disease among the previously lithe inhabitants of the South Pacific.
Another of Britain's colonial culinary legacies - corned beef - is also being blamed for a rise in obesity-related illnesses in countries once known for muscled warriors and slim-hipped maidens.
Many islanders drive to the local shop to buy tins of spam
Countries across the region - many of them former British territories, from Tonga to Tuvalu - are struggling to deal with a health crisis caused by poor diet and not enough exercise.
Where once islanders ate fish, vegetables and coconuts, burning off excess calories by casting nets from canoes and farming small plots of land, now they eat tinned, processed food and drive to the nearest shop.
Once confined to the South Pacific's somnolent capitals, the problem of obesity has now spread to outlying islands.
"Even if you go into a store in a remote village you'll find shelves of Spam and corned beef," said Dr Jan Pryor, the director of research at the Fiji School of Medicine.
"In the past it was unusual for anyone to have a stroke under 50, now people are having strokes in their twenties and thirties. You see it every day."
Figures from the World Health Organisation show that Pacific island nations make up eight of the world's 10 most obese countries.
"What we have in this country is a raging epidemic. We have 6,000 to 8,000 cases of diabetes out of a population of 53,000 people," said Carl Hacker, the director of economic policy and planning in the Marshall Islands.
"What is unfolding here is a physical disaster and a fiscal disaster."
The single-island nation of Nauru, which faces economic disaster in the wake of its Australian-run refugee detention centre closing down last week, heads the list with 94.5 per cent of people older than 15 defined as obese.
Similar problems are repeated across the South Pacific.
"When I was a child, there was less imported food, we would eat local food, which was high carbohydrate, low sugar and high fibre," said Dr Malokai Ake, the chief medical officer for public health in Tonga.
"We would walk or ride on a horse to work in the plantations and spend a lot of time fishing, swimming or diving.
"The amount of calories people have every day now, we used to only have on feast days."
Researchers have suggested Pacific Islanders have a genetic disposition to obesity. They say their metabolism has learned to cope over thousands of years with times of plenty and periods of famine by quickly storing surplus calories as body fat.
Tonga's late king, Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, who died in 2006, was once renowned as the world's heaviest monarch, weighing in at 440lbs.
He tried to persuade his subjects to lose weight by taking up - in his seventies - regular bicycle rides up and down the runway of the country's international airport.
But education has not been enough to curb the growth of obesity, largely because of economics.
It is cheaper to buy "mutton flaps" - belly cuts from sheep which are high in saturated fat - from New Zealand and Australia, or "turkey tails" from the US, than fresh local fish.
Some countries have tried banning the most unhealthy imports.
Fiji banned the importation of mutton flaps in 2000 and Samoa banned imports of turkey tails in 2007.
My husband spent 20 years on Guam and LOVES Spam.
Canned horsemeat?
We had our fair share of it in Germany, too - but, from military sources, not civilian. They did a fairly good job of resisting that bit of Americana.
lol. I thot it was Bush’s fault they were going for the Spam. Well, as long as someone else is responsible.
I hate the junk...I read it years ago in an anthropology article..then again it was written up - in Paul Theroux’s Happy Isles of Oceania, one of his travel books.
That is 2 sources
See my post in 105
“Spam has been popular in the Pacific since WWII”
Spam and sweetened condensed milk, another island favorite.
“Spam has been popular in the Pacific since WWII”
Spam and sweetened condensed milk, another island favorite.
LOL He loved it! His dad worked for Continental Airlines because Guam is/was their Pacific hub. He got to go water skiing and scuba diving anytime he wanted, LOVED Chamorro food, and had lots of friends among the locals. Well, I guess he himself WAS a local! I don’t think he’d want to live there again, but he loved it while he was there. I haven’t been able to break him of his Spam habit, though. :o)
My sister saw a can of spotted dick at the supermarket not long ago. She left her cart in the aisle and ran out to call me. She was laughing so hard she almost wet herself. Sis had no idea what it was. I had to explain to her that it was pudding and the “spots” were raisins.
OMB, I was raised on this delicacy as a child. And when the budget got tight, we would feast on “Treat”
LOL!! I believe I first heard about it from the Monty Python shows. Then I saw it being offered from a catalog selling British goods. I cracked up because up until then, I had no idea what it was either.
Indeed !
Love that stuff !
Stay safe !
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