NUKU'ALOFA (AFP) - the supermarket shelves, enormous cans of corned beef Tonga, the size of paint replaced traditional such as fish fare boxes and the coconut long ago - that contribute to an epidemic of obesity that sees the Pacific region ranked as the largest in the world.
Meat Tonga almost invariably comes in a box, Turkey Breast, luncheon meat, meat, or Spam, which can be purchased in a variety of forms, including smoked with pepper or poisoned with cheese for an additional success in calories either.
The common denominator, Tonga? s Malakai Ake of Chief medical officer said, is that "meat junk" is loaded with salt and saturated fat, which means leap of islanders continue to expand.
"It's the biggest problem with Tonga," he told AFP, citing high levels of related to the weight of coronary artery disease, diabetes and stroke among the inhabitants of the island.
All the other days he did y a burial, a nearby neighbour, a parent, a friend. It is always of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, this is ridiculous. ?
The Tongan Health Ministry says more than 90 per cent of the total population is classified as overweight and more than 60% are obese.
According to the world Organization of the health data published last year, the Pacific island nations account for eight of the top 10 countries where male population is overweight or obese.
Weight-related diseases are responsible for three quarters of the deaths in the region, focusing on Fiji nutritionist WHO Temo Waqanivalu said, with rates of diabetes in some Pacific nations about 50 percent.
"This is a problem that health systems are struggling to treat", he said.
"If you walk in a hospital in the countries of the Pacific, about 75 to 80 per cent of the surgery are the result of non-communicable diseases related to obesity."
Some experts believe that economic, cultural and habits have contributed to the obesity epidemic, which is a problem more and more around the world, more acute in the Pacific.
Ake said the traditional way of life, where the inhabitants of guard adapted through agriculture and fishing, have given way to a more sedentary existence in recent years and motor vehicles became more readily available.
"In" my young days we walk everywhere in the world and go swimming, he said. "" "". "Now people use the car to go in a way a little to the bottom of the street".
Traditional plans around fish and root crops are also fallen disgrace, replaced with fatty foods imported from Western countries that islanders see more convenient and more prestigious.
"They are unable to compete with the glamour and the flashiness of imported foods," Waqanivalu said, adding that consumers illiquid in the Pacific often had little choice to make poor food choices.
"In some countries, it is cheaper to buy a soda and a bottle of water."
"When they go down the aisles of the supermarket, probably is the last thing people seeking nutrition information, they are looking at the price.
Pacific Islanders sometimes argue that they have big management course and are more likely to take weight the others, even if it is a theory that rejects waqanivalu.
He said a generous chest circumference had long been considered as a sign of status in the Pacific, but the message was slowly getting more big is not necessarily better.
"We will tell people that being is OK but being bold is different and that is what we begin to see", he said.
Late King Tupou IV of Tonga, who died in 2006, contributed to raising awareness of obesity in the 1990s, when it had organized a national routine of diet and exercise after receiving warnings from his doctors on its weight.
Listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the heaviest monarch in the world to nearly 210 kilograms (463 pounds), he would have lost 70 kilograms.
But Prime Minister Lord Tu'ivakano of Tonga said more must be done to combat the problem of obesity and his Government would seek to restrict imports as mutton flaps - good market, fatty mutton popular waste in the country.
"We return to the old methods, just eat good food - tarots, kumaras (sweet potatoes), Yam," he said
"It is a question of saying: 'Sorry, you have to find an alternative', probably eat flaps fish instead of sheep."
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