Pacific islanders pay heavy price for abandoning traditional diet

Replacing traditional foods with imported, processed food has contributed to the high prevalence of obesity and related health problems in the Pacific islands. Jane Parry reports.

Scattered across the Pacific Ocean are thousands of islands which make up three regions known as Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Beyond the image of white sandy beaches and carefree lifestyles, the Pacific islands are facing serious health problems, the prime culprit being imported foods.

In at least 10 Pacific island countries, more than 50% (and in some, up to 90%) of the population is overweight according to World Health Organization (WHO) surveys. More seriously, obesity prevalence ranges from more than 30% in Fiji to a staggering 80% among women in American Samoa, a territory of the United States of America (USA).

UNICEF/Giacomo Pirozzi

Adolescents learn good eating habits at a youth centre in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

WHO defines overweight as having a body mass index (BMI) equal to or more than 25, and obesity as a BMI equal to or more than 30. Diabetes prevalence among adults in the Pacific region is among the highest in the world; 47% in American Samoa compared with 13% in mainland USA, and it ranges from 14% to 44% elsewhere in the region.

Micronutrient deficiencies are also common in this region. In 15 of 16 countries surveyed, more than one fifth of children and pregnant women were anaemic. In Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, iodine deficiency and related goitre are endemic although, in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, great progress was made recently through salt iodization. In many other Pacific countries and territories the situation is yet to be assessed. Vitamin A deficiency is also a significant public health risk in Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea.

About 40% of the Pacific island region’s population of 9.7 million has been diagnosed with a noncommunicable disease, notably cardiovascular disease, diabetes and hypertension. These diseases account for three quarters of all deaths across the Pacific archipelago and 40–60% of total health-care expenditure, according to a meeting on obesity prevention and control strategies in the Pacific held in Samoa in September 2000.

Dr Temo K Waqanivalu, technical officer for nutrition and physical activity at the Office of the WHO representative for the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, partly blames poor diet for the region’s health problems. “Promotion of traditional foods has fallen by the wayside. They are unable to compete with the glamour and flashiness of imported foods,” he says.

People in the Pacific islands may know what constitutes healthy eating but, as in many parts of the world, governments struggle to change people’s behaviour. In eight countries, less than 20% of people surveyed reported eating the recommended five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day. The often calorie-rich and nutrient-poor imported foods have a stronger appeal.

A major challenge for Pacific island countries is to reinforce nutrition education in schools by promoting healthy eating practices. “Even as kids we know what we are supposed to eat and not eat; there is a very good level of nutrition education in Fiji,” says Ateca Kama, senior nutritionist at Fiji’s National Food and Nutrition Centre. “The challenge is for us to translate knowledge into behaviour. For example, schools teach good nutrition as part of the curriculum, and then they sell junk food in the school canteen because they need to make a profit.”

UNICEF/Giacomo Pirozzi

Primary school children from Lunga Village, Solomon Islands.

At the Pacific Food Summit held in Vanuatu in April, delegates agreed that the region’s governments need new laws to better regulate the food industry. “There isn’t a lot of clarity in regulating the food industry, which is saying it wants a level playing field. For example, food labels vary as much as the countries the food comes from,” says Dr Colin Bell, technical officer, noncommunicable diseases, at WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila.

Historically, food was imported from Australia and New Zealand, but now it comes from much further afield: China, Malaysia and the Philippines. Nutrition labels are not only inconsistent but often not in English, the common language spoken in most Pacific island countries. Mandating clear, consistent labelling is crucial, says Bell. “The simpler, the better. Simple nutrition signposts can be useful and should be encouraged, and ingredient labels are really important for monitoring food safety and quality.”

Increasing the proportion of locally grown, nutritious and less energy-dense traditional foods in the diets of Pacific islanders is also essential, says Waqanivalu. “We are also challenging our own agriculture and fishing sectors to strike a balance between local supply and commercialization. There have been ‘go local’ campaigns in [the Federated States of] Micronesia and other countries to promote local foods.”

The summit in April emphasized the needs of infants and how breastfeeding might improve their nutrition. Breastfeeding is more prevalent in the Pacific islands than in many other countries in WHO’s Western Pacific Region, says Dr Tommaso Cavalli-Sforza, regional adviser on nutrition for WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office, one factor being formula manufacturers opting not to push into the Pacific islands. “There is less interest in promoting infant formula because the population is much smaller than in Asian countries and so the industry spends a lot less on advertising there than it does in, for example, the Philippines,” he says. “However in some countries, such as Samoa, infant formula is still found in large quantities in local stores.”

However, the trend is for high initial rates of breastfeeding to fall by more than half at six months, and to continue downwards, according to Seini Kurusiga, nutrition specialist at the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) Pacific office in Suva, Fiji. “There is a need for greater support for breastfeeding, to build renewed interest and make it fashionable to breastfeed,” she says. “Support for maternal and infant nutrition in the region is much more likely to receive the attention it deserves if it is on a regional agenda.”

Tackling such widespread health problems in the region will require changes in food imports and agricultural policy that can best be achieved by cooperation between different sectors and throughout the region. Establishing the importance of collaboration was one of the key successes of the summit, says Waqanivalu.

UNICEF/Giacomo Pirozzi

A young girl prepares to cook some vegetables in Port Vila, Vanuatu.

“What the summit has brought out is the multisectoral approach. We tried to put things in terms of health and development and a need to work hand-in-hand if we are going to make an impact.”

But any regional collaborative efforts must be flexible, says Bell, to take into account, for example, the Pacific islands’ vulnerability to the impact of climate change on food supply. “There is a need for data on food security to encourage informed decision-making in the face of climate change and other threats,” he says.

The high cost of conducting national food consumption surveys limits the extent to which they can collect information on the causes of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. In an effort to overcome this, countries are working with WHO and partner agencies to pool the data and resources of different sectors, to improve data collection, analysis and use for planning. This month, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in collaboration with The World Bank is holding a workshop of national statistics officers to improve data collection and use.

Life expectancy data make clear the urgent need for action. The average age at which people develop diabetes and cardiovascular disease is getting lower. In Fiji, only 16% of the population is aged more than 55 years due to premature deaths primarily caused by noncommunicable diseases, says Waqanivalu.

“These diseases are finally receiving the attention they rightfully deserve at a regional and global level, with the Pacific Food Summit and more recently the United Nations General Assembly resolution on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases,” he says. For the first time ever, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a summit in September 2011 to address the threat posed by noncommunicable diseases particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

At the Pacific Food Summit, participating countries and territories unanimously endorsed a framework for action on food security. Information on the framework can be found at www.foodsecurepacific.org.

"Polynesian Bodies" - Why Polynesian Bodies Build Muscle Better

It's true. Polynesian men and woman make some of the best athletes in the world especially in sports requiring strength, power, stamina and aggression. Here is a great article from Andrew P revealing some of the reasons why Polynesian men and woman can build muscle and strength almost effortlessly, however, can also struggle with unsightly body fat:

Polynesian people are descendants of those early mariners that crossed the great waters and became the original inhabitants of the South Pacific Islands. In order to survive those long cold oceanic journeys, their Polynesian bodies evolved to develop maximum muscle building capabilities as a means of generating and preserving body temperature.

This was a direct adaptation to an environmental factor. Those that could not adapt died, whereas the survivors carried with them genetic advantages, creating a hybrid body of sorts, capable of performing enormous feats of physical labor, on very little calories, and very little water.

Colonization of the Pacific Islands only encouraged the Polynesian body to propagate these gene characteristics, as the early Islanders literally hacked their homes out of the forests with their bare hands. Domesticating wildlife and horticulture, was a herculean feat, and the scarcity of fresh water developed a need for the Polynesian body to store fluids efficiently.

These early evolutionary patterns form the basis of the contemporary Polynesian body. It enables Polynesian bodies to:

1. Build muscle easily

2. Possess unique strength to mass capabilities

3. Withstand harsh environmental conditions more easily

4. Endure long periods with little food and little water

Unfortunately these adaptations also mean Polynesian bodies will

1. Store excess energy more easily in the form of body fat

2. Store excess water subcutaneously

3. Burn calories at a slower more gradual pace

In the absence of the extreme physical labors performed by our Polynesian ancestors, and the readily abundant food in western cultures, it is no surprise that Polynesian bodies have a tendency to gain unsightly body fat. This storage of excess energy was a survival adaptation for the days of leanness prevalent in the island cultures, but completely absent in western cultures.

Here are 3 of the best tips to improve a Polynesian Body

1. Exercise, choosing intense weight training over cardio.

Polynesian bodies are designed to work out with maximum intensity. Once or twice a week is sufficient. If you are weight training 5 - 6 days a week, I guarantee that you can train twice as hard once or twice a week. Another way of looking at it is this: If you can weight train for 90 min's, I assure you, you can train harder for 40 min's. Remember that you can train hard or you can train long, but you can't do both. Always choose to train hard. Intense training triggers the release of muscle building hormones into the blood stream. Jane Fonda workouts do not. Polynesian bodies respond well to incredibly intense training regimes performed less often.

2. Don't eat everyday.

This one may come as a shock to you, especially if you are Polynesian, but it is true. You may have heard that if you don't eat every few hours then your body goes into starvation mode, yada, yada, yada. Who came up with this idea, did they get the rest of the day off for such brilliance? It is simply not true. Polynesian bodies have descended from a genetic strain of humans that could survive for weeks without food and rest and very little water.

Early man tracked herds over vast expanses, on foot, and when they finally engaged their prey they could somehow muster the strength and energy, in this depleted state, to run down and kill a beast more than ten times their size. I know one thing's for sure. Put a bunch of these early hominids in the NFL and they would stomp the snot out of those juice heads. We need to tap into that power, and utilize the body's stored energy.

The idea that you feel tired all the time, and that you need to eat constantly to maintain your energy levels are fabrications of the weak modern mind that prevent us from exploiting the vastness of our true human potential.

3. Eat real, natural, unprocessed foods indigenous to the islands, and eat just enough to be satisfied.

A Polynesian body can store more water, so drink plenty to discourage water retention.

Organic fruits, vegetables, seafood, coconut oil, taro, along with chicken, pork and beef are the mainstay of the Polynesian diet. These are the foods which Polynesian bodies have adapted to assimilate efficiently through hundreds of years of evolution. Polynesians should not consume processed foods. Canned foods and commercially packaged foods combined with the naturally high fat Polynesian diets create metabolic mayhem in the Polynesian body. Eliminate all processed and man made foods gradually.

Through the evolutionary process of natural selection, Polynesian bodies can become the ultimate muscle building powerhouse, or an unsightly storage system for excess energy and water weight. Polynesian bodies can build muscle more efficiently because they possess slightly lower metabolisms, and have a genetic propensity to store more water. Over 70% of muscle is water. This is a wonderful adaptation for gaining muscle mass, but slightly detrimental when the desire is to burn body fat, and flush subcutaneous water. Polynesian bodies also possess a unique hormonal environment that allows muscle gain to take place more effectively. A gift to the contemporary Polynesian body from their ancestors who survived some of the most brutal oceanic endeavors.

To approach genetic potential a Polynesian bodybuilder should train with extreme intensity, less often, control caloric intake and manage their water correctly.

Andrew P.

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Polynesian Diet Strategies - 7 Tips to Help You Lose Weight Permanently

Here is a great article from Andrew P on weight loss for Polynesians:

I am constantly amazed when I hear stories of Polynesians who suddenly passed away from heart attack, diabetes, and even colon cancer, at such a young age. My grandfather was very young when he died from colon cancer. My mother who is now 62 has suffered from a long history of chronic illnesses, arthritis, stroke, and now has diabetes. Outside of my immediate family, I see other Polynesians suffering from diet induced diseases, and I fear they will not live to see their grandchildren. So what is happening to our people, and what can we do to stop it?

I am going to give you seven of the best tips you can implement to lose weight, and get back your health starting right now, but first I want to tell you a little about myself.

I am a Polynesian male in my late thirties. I was born and raised in New Zealand to loving parents of six children. I came to the United States in the late nineties to attend school. After the first year of College, I had gained some extra weight, about 15lbs. No big deal right, wrong. As each year passed I was gaining more and more unsightly body fat.

This was extremely abnormal for me, since I was fairly active and played a great deal of competitive sports, such as rugby, basketball, tennis and volleyball. I have always had a good sense about being in shape and was growing frustrated at the elusive body fat accumulating day to day. I ignored it for a long time until one day I was flipping through some photos I just developed. I saw a shot of myself where my back was facing the camera. For a brief moment I was confused as to who that was. I didn't even recognize myself. I was embarrassed and ashamed to realize that the way I thought I looked, and how I actually looked were completely different. Is this what people were seeing?

At this point I bought a pair of scales to assess the damage. After three years of denial I weighed a hefty 246lbs. I was stunned. This wasn't the worst part. I was beginning to have bad chest pains, and experienced dizziness and shortness of breath. I felt tired all the time. I was also becoming more and more depressed. So what was going on? Well, in a nutshell, I was eating the wrong foods, at the wrong times, and way too much of it.

I decided I was going to embark on a mission, to lose 30lbs, after all how hard can that be right. I mean I am a hard worker, should be a snap. So I did what most people do, head out to the local gym, sign up for a membership and personal trainer, bought all the protein bars, shakes and supplements they recommended. I even subscribed to a fitness magazine and purchased products they recommended. All in all I had spent a small fortune in order to get started, but this was fine because I was really committing myself.

I spent the next 3 months working out with my trainer twice a week, and on my own four times a week, with only Sunday off. My workouts consisted of 35-45mins of cardio six days a week and weight training for 60 Min's 5 days a week. At first I started to lose weight by 4-5lbs a week. I was really excited, then slowly but surely, it started to drop to 2lbs a week, then not even one. My trainer told me 'we need to tweak your diet a little, and work a little harder'. Believe me when I tell you I was busting my butt to get in shape. There were days when I was the only one in the gym at 1.30am doing cardio. The cleaners would joke around saying I needed to pay rent I was there so much.

And then it happened, at my next weigh in day I had actually gained 2lbs. My trainer assured me this was muscle gain, and not to worry as the scales don't distinguish between muscle gain, and fat gain, or muscle loss and fat loss for that matter. I was skeptical because I felt so much weaker. I couldn't bench or leg press what I could 3 months earlier, and if I was really gaining muscle, shouldn't I be stronger. It didn't make sense to me. Nevertheless I continued on to the end of our scheduled training program. When all was said and done I weighed 227lbs. I had lost 19lbs, not bad, but a far cry from my goal of 30lbs.

The worst thing about it, was that I didn't look much different, just smaller. It was discouraging to me to think I had worked so hard for 3 months and was still not happy with the way I looked. I was still flabby, still undefined, and still felt tired all the time, some days even more tired than when I was heavier. Then it dawned on me, the trainers at the gym had taken specific courses and certifications to help their clients get into better shape. Perhaps they were not specific enough for me. I started to pay a lot more attention to the things I ate, the types of foods, as well as how they affected me, even the foods recommended by my trainer which I had taken as gospel. Here is what I found.

1. Many of the carbohydrates I was eating, even the healthy fibrous carbs, had an adverse affect on me.

2. I could stuff myself with veges and fruits all day long and still be hungry.

3. I would eat less then 36g of fat a day for weeks and still be flabby

4. Eating the forbidden red meat made me feel strong and induced powerful workouts

5. Eating coconut, a food rich in saturated fats curbed my hunger, and accelerated my fat loss

6. Eating larger meals less often, gave me unbelievable energy, despite the accepted idea of eating smaller frequent meals.

7. Healthy grains, such as oatmeal, and wheat bread slowed my weight loss.

8. Cardio sessions left me feeling weak and depleted, and you guessed it, still smooth, not cut

9. Weight training energized me

10. All the protein shakes I was using were making me fat

11. White rice surprisingly did not

12. Although yams were sweeter than potatoes, they helped my progress, where potatoes hindered

13. I could eat a lot, and I mean a lot of fish, and still get lean

I realize now that there is a uniqueness to the Polynesian body and how many of the accepted laws and practices of the fitness industry do not apply to us.

Last year I travelled to Cambodia. While I was there I couldn't help but notice how slender and healthy the people of that culture were, despite being a third world country, or perhaps due to it. Obesity was practically non existent, and I thought to myself there must be something to the way they eat. I really doubt the average Cambodian has a membership to Golds Gym, and I didn't see them out running all the time. Many of them where just sitting around on the streets.

When I flew back to the US my first stop was San Fransisco Airport, and there was no mistaking being back in America. Eight out of ten people I saw were either overweight or obese. I thought more about the Cambodian culture. What did they eat so ordinarily that kept them in shape? Then it came to me. They eat the foods their bodies have evolved to assimilate. It was an epiphany of mass proportion. Once I realised this I could apply it to myself right. Well, I couldn't have been more right.

I began to research more and more about my heritage. Where did I come from? Who are my parents? Where are they from? What did the people from that region of the world eat before the introduction of commercially processed foods? Now I was getting somewhere. It all led to genetics.

I researched several case studies from the early sixties concerning cultures from the isles of the sea. It was amazing to see the differences in what they ate and how they obtained their food. It was also sad to see how their health has plummeted as they have strayed from that food. It has long been understood that in order to discover truth, you must go to the source. Unchanged and untainted, it is the wellspring from which all knowledge will flow. Cheap imitations may mimic the truth, but from their fruits, they will be revealed.

What I am speaking of are fake foods, fake fats, fake sugars, engineered additives, harmful chemicals, and unnatural preservatives, powders, shakes, and meal replacements to name a few. All in all they eventually reveal themselves through unsightly bodies, crippling health issues, and the loss of quality of life. As soon as I started eliminating all processed foods, refined sugars, and all so called health foods, my fat loss skyrocketed. In just a few weeks, I had lost 14lbs, and the weight continued to come off. My energy levels were very high, and this made me more excited and motivated to exercise. Over the next 3 months I had lost a significant amount of body fat and a total of 38lbs not including the 19lbs I had lost working my butt off. Funny thing was that I was working out half as much as I was to lose those 19lbs, as I did to lose the 38lbs. I was really onto something. All in all I had lost a total of 57lbs.

One day at the gym, a trainer was blown away by how I looked. He had the audacity to ask me 'what happened?', as if I had survived a life threatening disease. He then asked 'what's your secret', and I found myself caught in the irony of telling a trainer that my secret was diet and exercise. This was the same advice I had paid over $900 for three months earlier. If only that advice were the right diet, and the right exercise for a Polynesian. Well, back to genetics.

I discovered something very interesting about my heritage. My parents are from the Polynesian islands. My father was born in Lotopa Upolu, and my mother in Suva Fiji. Genetic mapping shows that these cultures have strong links to the indigenous people of Taiwan, and that they are more closely linked to this culture than any other. I thought, hm, seems plausible; Polynesians love chop suey, eat a lot of rice, love their fish, even eat it raw like the Asian cultures. All I did was eat more of the foods they would have eaten on those islands fifty years ago, and why, because these are the foods my body has evolved to assimilate, despite the fact that my diet can contain as much as 60% saturated fats. Yep, you read it right. I can eat a lot more fat and be lean and healthy if they are natural fats, but I cannot eat a small amount of sugar and get away with it.

I went on to discover many important aspects of health that are specific to Polynesians, which cannot be addressed in the scope of this article, but here are some guide lines to help you lose weight safely and permanently.

Tip #1 You must lower your carbohydrates and eliminate processed foods

Before the white man showed up on the islands, organic foods were called ordinary foods. Nothing was processed, and the work effort alone to provide food for your family would be enough to keep anyone lean.

Tip #2 Increase your fiber intake

Tip #3 Drink more water

Get rid of sodas, sports drinks, alcohol, diet beverages, and caffeinated drinks, with the exception of green tea. Polynesians can benefit a great deal from green tea as it has been used by their ancestors (Asians) for medicinal purposes for more than 2000 years. Can't be wrong.

Tip #4 Eat more protein

Eat whole foods in the form of organic pork, organic beef, and fish. Hey this is the best part. It's what we love and our bodies are designed for it.

Tip #5 Replace your olive, vegetable and corn oils with coconut oil

Although olive oil is highly recommended and a mainstay of most diets, last time I checked no islanders descended from Italians. Again believe me when I say, our bodies have evolved to assimilate coconut oil better than any other. Various studies show that although there is little nutritional value in coconut oil, many people lose weight by eating it.

In the islands coconut and coconut cream is used in everything. Sixty percent of the normal diet is comprised of saturated fat compared to the typical western diet of thirty five to forty five percent fat, yet the islanders had less heart disease and less blood cholesterol. Diabetes, and colon cancer were completely absent before the introduction of processed foods. Problems arise when you combine these high natural oil diets with refined sugars, and processed foods containing chemicals, additives and preservatives that wreak havoc on the typical Polynesian body type. Things like spam, and canned corned beef that use fake fats are dangerous, and should not be eaten.

Tip #6 Avoid these foods at all cost

High Fructose Corn Syrup
Refined sugar
Fake fats such as trans fats and partially hydrogenated oil
Artificial sweeteners and diet foods
Dairy
Soy products

If you are eliminating all processed foods you will not have a difficulty with most of these. Also avoid processed meats, such as bacon and deli meats as they can contain modified salts, sugars and dangerous nitrates.

Tip #7 Keep a food journal

You may be surprised at how much you eat, or how little. If you keep a journal, you will have an accurate record of how your body is affected by different foods. This is a very useful tool.

Obviously there are so many things you can learn that break down the very specifics of dieting techniques, but trust me, these simple techniques will work for you as they have for me. I have kept the weight off for six years now, and feel terrific. I do recommend that you do more research as I did, to learn everything you can about successful weight loss, and how it relates to you specifically. Don't be disheartened by all the information that is available out there. A lot of the diet strategies and work out programs won't work for us, but some of them will. Educate yourself, for knowledge is power. Nothing is more important than investing in your own health, and that of your family.\

Andrew P.

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