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Sunday | May 28, 2000
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Separating fat from fiction
Title: Obesity and Poverty: A new Public Health Challenge
There was a time, and it probably still exists, when poor people aspired to be fat.
The kind of names that being slim inspired, "mirasmi pickney" etcetera, were enough to force any mother to stuff their child until he/she started bulging. I had a sister in New York who always linked slimness with AIDS thereby encouraging me to put on some weight.
But, according to the World Health Organisation and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) this is a serious blunder.
Well, we all know that being fat should not be preferred to being slim, no matter how prosperous it makes us look. But, we probably did not realize how unhealthy weight is until now.
Talking to co-editor of the book, Dr. Manuel Pena, who heads the WHO/PAHO office in Kingston, triggered second thoughts about fast food chains. And what about the meals the children are eating in school, especially the Government's milk and bun School Feeding Programme meal?
Dr. Pena thinks that one doesn't have to actually stop eating fast foods, but we could probably insist that the restaurants use less fattening inputs, like the cooking oil, or removing the skin from the chicken.
He says he cannot pass a verdict on the School Feeding Programme, until they have concluded a study which is currently being done.
It is for these reasons that the book,Obesity and Poverty: A New Public Health Challenge, edited by Dr. Pena and Jorge Bacallao, has stirred much interest in Jamaica since its launch here recently.
"To this moment, obesity always has been erroneously conceived as the opposite side of undernutrition," Dr. Pena warns. "That is a big mistake."
Risk factor
As he explained it, obese people can actually be undernourished, because they eat more sugar and fat and take in less iron, zinc, fibre and other nutritients than the slim person.
According to the book: "Overweight, particularly abdominal fatness, is a well-established risk factor for cardiovascular disease, adult-onset diabetes, stroke and mortality".
In addition to the natural lure of fast/junk foods and pastries, the current generation is also tempted to be lazy by technology. As Dr. Pena explains, while teenagers in the past spent their leisure time playing games like cricket, football or track and field, they are now tempted to watch these and new games, like basketball and the NFL, on cable - an act which is not only naturally lazy, but encourages the eating of fast foods without burning up energy.
All this has led to a rising trend in obesity and overweight people, which is part of a worldwide demographic and epidemiological transition. The trend is not concomitant manifestation of development.
The 12 articles in the book look at the situation in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as impoverished populations in developed countries.
Economic problem
This is not only a health problem, but an economic one too. The public cost of providing medical services for the types of diseases triggered by fatness, is far much more than was the cost of treating ailments previously linked to poverty, like diarrhoea, pneumonia and infectious diseasess with were subject to antibiotics.
With obesity comes more chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, stroke and heart ailments. There are about 250 million obese adults, and the problems associated with the disease are so common in developing countries they are dominating traditional public health concerns.
PAHO is offering the book to the general public and to researchers, students, communicators and politicians charged with planning and executing activities designed to promote the population's health and well being. It can be obtained by getting in touch with PAHO at paho@pmds.com or the PAHO bookstore at http.//publications.paho.org, or by visiting the local PAHO office at the former Oceana Hotel, Kings Street, downtown Kingston.
PUBLISHER: PAHO/WHO
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