Tonga and Fiji and obesity, part 2

from w
I found a list of countries with the problem of obesity. Look how many in the top ten come from the South Pacific? Is it body shape that has biased the study? Would stats collected forty years ago be quite different?
Fiji is well down in the list, but perhaps that is because some thin people cut the statistics down from the fatties!

World's Fattest Countries

Lauren Streib 02.08.07, 12:01 AM ET

There are currently 1.6 billion overweight adults in the world, according to the World Health Organization. That number is projected to grow by 40% over the next 10 years. The following list reflects the percentage of overweight adults aged 15 and over. These are individuals who have individual body mass indexes, which measures weight relative to height, greater than or equal to 25. Obese is defined as having a BMI greater than or equal to 30.
Rank Country %
1. Nauru 94.5
2. Micronesia, Federated States of 91.1
3. Cook Islands 90.9
4. Tonga 90.8
5. Niue 81.7
6. Samoa 80.4
7. Palau 78.4
8. Kuwait 74.2
9. United States 74.1
10. Kiribati 73.6
11. Dominica 71.0
12. Barbados 69.7
13. Argentina 69.4
14. Egypt 69.4
15. Malta 68.7
16. Greece 68.5
17. New Zealand 68.4
18. United Arab Emirates 68.3
19. Mexico 68.1
20. Trinidad and Tobago 67.9
21. Australia 67.4
22. Belarus 66.8
23. Chile 65.3
24. Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) 65.2
25. Seychelles 64.6
26. Bahrain 64.1
27. Andorra 63.8
28. United Kingdom 63.8
29. Saudi Arabia 63.5
30. Monaco 62.4
31. Bolivia 62.2
32. San Marino 62.1
33. Guatemala 61.2
34. Mongolia 61.2
35. Canada 61.1
36. Qatar 61.0
37. Uruguay 60.9
38. Jordan 60.5
39. Bahamas 60.4
40. Iceland 60.4
41. Nicaragua 60.4
42. Cuba 60.1
43. Germany 60.1
44. Brunei Darussalam 59.8
45. Slovenia 59.8
46. Peru 59.6
47. Vanuatu 59.6
48. Finland 58.7
49. Jamaica 57.4
50. Israel 57.3
51. Saint Lucia 57.3
52. Austria 57.1
53. Azerbaijan 57.1
54. Turkey 56.8
55. Tuvalu 56.6
56. Dominican Republic 56.5
57. Slovakia 56.3
58. Cyprus 56.2
59. Saint Kitts and Nevis 56.1
60. Costa Rica 55.8
61. Colombia 55.6
62. Antigua and Barbuda 55.5
63. Switzerland 55.4
64. Montenegro 54.9
65. Serbia 54.9
66. Serbia and Montenegro (The former state union of) 54.9
67. Albania 54.8
68. Fiji 54.8
69. Bulgaria 54.2
70. Luxembourg 54.2
71. Croatia 53.9
72. Bosnia and Herzegovina 53.8
73. Portugal 53.8
74. Armenia 53.3
75. Grenada 53.3
76. South Africa 53.3
77. Iran (Islamic Republic of) 53.2
78. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 53.2
79. Lithuania 53.1
80. Lebanon 53.0
81. Czech Republic 52.9
82. Syrian Arab Republic 52.8
83. Spain 51.8
84. Hungary 51.6
85. Panama 51.4
86. Tunisia 51.0
87. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 50.6
88. Brazil 50.5
89. Belize 49.8
90. Sweden 49.7
91. Norway 49.1
92. Russian Federation 49.1
93. El Salvador 48.7
94. Lesotho 48.5
95. Suriname 47.8
96. Paraguay 47.7
97. Guyana 47.5
98. Poland 47.5
99. Latvia 47.3
100. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 47.2

Tonga and Fiji and obesity

from w
We watched a program on SBS TV this evening entitled Cooking in the Danger Zone Part 4 which was about Tonga and Fiji. It’s a cooking series with a difference, this time looking at obesity and the fattest people on earth – well, not quite. I think the Nauruans beat everyone on that one. It’s a program first shown in the UK. The journalist looked at coconut cream, tinned mutton, taro, a piglet or two, mutton flaps in Tonga, and in Fiji the use of taro, coconut cream, fish, another piglet. A point made was that there are less fish for the local people because of overfishing and the best fish go to Japan and Hong Kong. In Tonga to counterbalance the fat bodies, there’s a gym and they certainly have started to move their bodies! The fit Tongans were the family members still living on the land, eating natural food and working and walking.

07:30 pm COOKING IN THE DANGER ZONE Tonga And Fiji - In this five-part series, food writer Stefan Gates explores some of the most controversial food issues in the world. In tonight's episode Stefan finds some of the fattest people on Earth. In Tonga he discovers an alarmingly large percentage of Tongans are obese - literally eating themselves to death. In Fiji, he tries the local narcotic - cava (spelling?)- and slaughters a piglet for lunch. (From the UK, in English) (Food Series) (Part 4) PG CC WS

A good article from 2002 on the dumping of inappropriate food into the Pacific Islands is found here.
The article starts off as: Killing Me Softly: why is it that whenever I think of the Pacific, the word 'dumping' comes to mind?