Islands Business - We Say: INCORPORATE SENSIBLE NUTRITION STUDIES

'...only an enlightened citizenry can bring pressure on governments to usher in changes aimed at curbing the dumping of fat and sugar laden processed foods in the name of cheap imports’

It’s truly a great paradox of our times: hunger and starvation are as much responsible for poor nutrition and ill health as are foods overloaded with sugar and fat (and little else).

Young Pacific Islanders need to be educated on the dangers of eating too much processed food. Photo: Dev Nadkarni

Just over a couple of decades ago, the world’s development organisations were consumed by the problem of hunger and starvation in large, almost continent-wide swathes of the developing world.

Images of emaciated men, women and particularly children flashed across the world’s media in a bid to create awareness and raise funds.

Over the years, the world has achieved good progress in diminishing extreme deprivation and though extreme hunger and starvation still exist today, the problem is restricted to far smaller areas.

But those very same organisations are today preoccupied with an entirely new problem, particularly in the developing world: malnutrition and under-nutrition caused by the overabundance of cheap, processed food and drink packed with an excess of carbohydrates, saturated fat and a range of chemicals by way of additives and preservatives.

This problem of cheap and plenty has brought in a whole new range of what has been termed as lifestyle diseases in the developing world—something that would have been quite unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Poor nutrition and eventual sickness due to processed sugary and fatty food has turned out to be humanity’s biggest health problem.

The number of obese and overweight people far exceeds that of people suffering from starvation today. At 1.6 billion, over one sixth of the world’s six billion population is overweight with 400 million that can be designated obese.

The size and weight of an individual is no longer an indicator of either that individual’s or his/her country’s economic status as it might have been construed to be just a few decades ago.

Two thirds of overweight and obese people now live in low and middle income nations—the ones that are said to be fast developing countries, emerging markets or transition economies.

It is not just dietary habits—especially the increased consumption of cheap processed and packaged food and drink—that have been responsible for the runaway increase in lifestyle diseases. Concomitant factors of globalisation, urbanisation and the sheer faster pace of life are equally to blame.

The increased migration from rural to urban areas in search of employment opportunities has resulted in less people growing their own food and living off their land as they had been doing for generations. They have shifted their dependence to easily available, processed and packaged foods that are cheaper to buy and far more convenient as well.

Urban life, being far more sedentary than life in rural settings, has exacerbated the problem with progressively less emphasis on physical exercise, what with the convenience of inexpensive personal transport combined with increasing pressure on time for leisure and sporting activities.

Like elsewhere in the world, the Pacific Islands region too has had to contend with the growing problem of lifestyle diseases.

Monetisation of traditional subsistence economies has caused rural populations to migrate either to urban centres or even overseas, which indeed has set in motion the chain reaction of increased consumption of processed foods and lack of exercise, leading finally to poor health and a growing strain on the islands’ weak public heath systems.

Coronary heart disease, Type-II diabetes, hypertension and obesity have already assumed worrying proportions for the islands’ healthcare systems. As each year passes, governments are faced with bigger bills for having to send islanders overseas for expensive procedures such as coronary bypass surgeries and dialysis.

Yet, governments have neither done enough to educate people about the ill effects of increased consumption of processed foods nor have they taken adequate steps to curb the imports of potentially unhealthy foodstuffs.

Fatty meats and other foods rich in saturated fat that would be viewed with great suspicion in the developed world continue to be dumped with impunity in the islands with little or no regulation and certainly no education on the part of the government.

There is little emphasis on getting people to read and understand food labels to be able to make informed decisions before they purchase packaged food and drink cheaply imported from overseas.

The failure of governments in this regard has not helped the problem and international organisations have been researching ways and means to introduce preventative strategies mainly in such countries where lifestyle diseases are a worrying problem with little or no action from their governments at addressing the basic issues.

Research has indicated that one of the most effective strategies for overcoming malnutrition and lifestyle diseases like excessive weight, obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases is educating school children about healthy nutrition, a sensible diet and incorporating physical activity in their daily lives.

Last month, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) launched a novel campaign towards educating young people at school level about the importance of choosing the right foods, inculcating habits and embracing activities that would contribute to a healthy future adult life.

FAO has produced a module of collateral materials for teachers and instructors of young people about eating, drinking and staying healthy.

It is primarily a guide for curriculum development and is targeted at education ministry officials, teachers, nutrition experts, health professionals and others involved in the planning of nutrition education programmes for primary schools.

Regional governments must hasten to acquire this new curriculum and orientate their educational system and resources to incorporate sensible nutrition into studies at the primary school level in the hope that today’s students would grow up armed with the knowledge required to lead healthy lives.

For only an informed and enlightened citizenry can bring the necessary pressure to bear on governments to usher in administrative and even legislative changes aimed at curbing the dumping of potentially dangerous fat and sugar laden processed and packaged foods on an unsuspecting public in the name of cheap imports.

Any failure to take adequate steps urgently will inevitably result in an alarming increase in unproductive human capital to say nothing of the effect such an eventuality would have on the future of the region’s fragile economies.