"Lifestyle of Inactivity"

Written by Charlina Tone
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
Lemalu Dr. Limbo Fiu, President of the Samoa Medical Association says that Samoans are amongst the most obese people in the South Pacific, due to what he has termed as a “lifestyle of inactivity.” He explains that this is because nowadays with so much modern technology driving is favored over walking, children spend long hours watching television or playing video games. “There has been a dramatic change in terms of inactivity, we are not as active as before, we do not go out to the plantations and work as often as before,” says Lemalu. “Obesity is definitely increasing in this country this is reflected in the prevalence of many diseases such as high blood pressure, kidney problems, stroke and especially diabetes which has more than doubled throughout the years.” He adds that diabetes leads to heart diseases, kidney failures and eventually the need for dialysis treatment. “20% of the Samoan population is diabetic.” He says in Samoa alone the public health has engaged in many activities that are aimed towards improving Nutrition such as a Nutrition Policy which includes food bans such as that on turkey tails and different kinds of imported meat which is unhealthy. “There are programs encouraging physical activity currently underway in churches, village based exercise programs, tobacco control. Within schools we promote good nutrition and healthy living.” He explains that a lot of positive results and recommendations came out of this forum and addressing obesity and other non communicable diseases was a major focus at the conference this year. “The Pacific culture is almost the same so the food we eat is also very similar if not the same. We have recognized that all Pacific Islands are facing the same problems, our job is to look for solutions and try and get government intervention to curb the rise in non communicable diseases.” He says that is especially great that Pacific Island health professionals scattered around Australia and New Zealand are also here. “We bring together all these specialists to link together and share experiences, and to find out what each country is trying to do to curb these problems.” He adds that there has been a really good response from this forum. Regional Approach “There has a Regional Approach from this forum to share human resources, we have decided that it would be easier to set up one regional centre where all the countries can contribute and transferring the patient there instead of Australia and New Zealand where the costs incurred is very high.” The amount of money spent to spend patients overseas and Lemalu believes that with this initiative the costs will not be so high. This means that Pacific Islands who specialize in a particular field will be sent for example heart surgery will be trained and then work at that specified centre. Lemalu believes that it would be very costly for each country to set up their own centres so instead all the countries can contribute to funding different centres around the region for Pacific Island patients to go to, this will also save the governments a lot of money. Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment Name Email Title Comment

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