Can you guess which Island nation is literally dying from adopting Western eating today, but were once a nation of healthy people? So much so that the life span of the average man in this nation is 48 years old. Unbelievable, eh! I think it is safe to say that the problems for this island nation began when they started importing Western foods from the United States.
Nauru is a tiny nation between Australia and Hawaii with a population of 9900 people. 95% of the adults are now officially over weight and 5% of men are clinically obese. Over half of Nauruan suffer Type II Diabetes and are now suffering the problems caused by diabetes such as limb amputations, heart failure, kidney failure, and blindness.
What happened to this nation of once healthy hunter/gathers who were lean and fit? It all started with the discovery of phosphate strip mining in the 1980's fossilized marine life imported to the world as fertilizer brought the nation great wealth and they gave up their ancestor's way of life for Western foods loaded with lots of fat, salt, and sugar. Wow...
But the nation isn't sulking, but doing something about their problems by having a nationally campaign to get out and move by offering weekly aerobic classes, encouraging healthy eating in schools by offering less unhealthy foods, encouraging people to walk around the island, and encouraging men to challenge each other to lose weight by engaging them in competitions where they compete against one another in games.
http://beta.ca.news.yahoo.com/video/world-...
Posted By: Jen Fad
Wednesday, January 5th 2011 at 10:18AM
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