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HEALTH OF NATION UNDER THREAT: One Ministry builds and another destroys: worsening nutrition in Fiji - Professor Wadan Narsey

4/4/2015

15 Comments

 
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As part of their election strategy, the Fiji First Party promised free milk for Class One students throughout Fiji. Currently, the Bainimarama Government is delivering on the promise and the milk, no doubt to the great delight of Rewa Dairy Company and its owner, CJ Patel. Whether this is the best way to use tax payers’ funds to improve children’s nutrition and education, I leave to the government nutritionists to answer (if they ever bother).
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By Wadan Narsey

When it comes to taxation, the public well know the expression ‘one hand giveth and the other taketh’.


But in Fiji, we have one Ministry that builds while others destroy.

The Fiji government’s Ministry of Health professionals are valiantly and correctly exhorting us through the media to consume more of our local nutritious food and drinks.

The worthwhile objective is to slow down or reverse Fiji’s epidemic of non-communicable diseases caused by our increasing consumption of more processed and less nutritious foods, some classified as ‘junk foods’.

But the reports from the Fiji Bureau of Statistics household income and expenditure surveys all show evidence that our consumption of processed and imported foods is accelerating.

We are consuming more imported flour and rice and less dalo and yams.

We are consuming more imported meats like fatty lamb or chicken which is fed largely imported chicken feed, than our traditional proteins like fresh fish or shellfish.

We are consuming less of our traditional vegetables like rourou and tubua (churaiya).

We are consuming more of the junk foods including sweetened soft drinks, and less of our traditional snacks and drinks.

Read here for the latest data:

https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/report-on-the-2008-09-household-income-and-expenditure-survey-fibos-2011/

or read this on marine food consumption:

https://narseyonfiji.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/the-regression-of-marine-foods-consumption-in-fiji-changes-2002-03-to-2008-09-south-pacific-studies-322-pp105-127.pdf

But the irony is that while one arm of government is trying to improve nutrition, other arms are helping to destroy it or standing idly by while it is destroyed.

I give just four ongoing examples, involving the Ministry of Education and the private sector, but there are more.

Ministry of Education and Sports

In most developed countries, the ministries of education and government will not allow the manufacturers of junk food to sponsor school events.

But it is perfectly OK in Fiji.

For a few years now, the national athletic championships for schools has been called after a soft drink, Coca Cola, largely because the private soft drink company provides some funding which government is not willing to provide.

The inevitable result is that the company brand name is thrust into children’s minds day in day out, and through out the year, associated with a healthy sporting exercise.

The company brand name is mentioned  dozens of times over television news, while the company representative enthuses about the passion that schools, teachers and students, are showing the Games.


Instead, what the Ministry of Education does indirectly, is encourage the consumption of an incredibly sweetened drink, whose excessive consumption is associated with diabetes in our children.

Often, meal packages from popular food outlets,  include that product together with a hamburger or fish, with chips.

Is it any wonder that with such official ministerial support, the consumption of that product keeps increasing, as does the incidence of diabetes.

Milk and weet bix

As part of their election strategy, the Fiji First Party promised free milk for Class One students throughout Fiji.

Currently, the Bainimarama Government is delivering on the promise and the milk, no doubt to the great delight of Rewa Dairy Company and its owner, CJ Patel.

Whether this is the best way to use tax payers’ funds to improve children’s nutrition and education, I leave to the government nutritionists to answer (if they ever bother).

But astonishingly, the Bainimarama Government also announced that with the milk, they were also handing out Weet bix and special branded bowls and spoons to go with it.

The Minister of Education (Dr Mahendra Reddy) and the Prime Minister (Bainimarama) duly made the presentations at some village school, accompanied of course by the ubiquitous salusalu, and grateful thanks from the villagers.

Handouts, of any kind are always welcome, anywhere in Fiji.

But, was the Ministry of Health consulted on this Weet bix initiative?

Of course, the supplying company Sanitarium, and their agents in Fiji, would have been delighted to give it “for free”, but no doubt hoping that the consumption of that product will go up in future, as it is likely to do, especially with the Ministers’ blessings.

But most Fiji families have good local breakfast foods, which the Wheetbix is substituting.

If our children get used to Weet bix, of course, they will not want to eat dalo or kumala or yams or some roti and curry, for breakfast.

The Weet bix is a more expensive and imported product, whatever its nutritional value.

If the trend continues, Fiji will be importing more of such products, worsening our food security, and probably worsening the children’s nutrition,

All with the blessing and assistance of the Minister of Education and the Prime Minister, of course.

 Chicken stickers and school products

The public has been watching on television ads, school children and teachers being encouraged to buy a particular brand of chicken in order to collect stickers that can be redeemed by the schools for educational products.

Just lately, the same company is using the scheme to send teachers and children on exchange visits to New Zealand.

Of course these educational rewards are good for the children and teachers.

But why are school children, teachers and schools being used to foster the consumption of a particular brand of protein, whose inputs are largely imported?

Similarly, student and teacher exchange would normally be a good exercise, to be funded by the Ministry of Education and tax-payers who could ensure appropriate representation, not managed by a private company to boost its chicken sales by selecting and rewarding those who buy more of its chicken.

Note that while some may claim that it is merely one chicken brand competing against another chicken brand, I can assure you that not only will our consumers end up consuming more chicken, of all brands, but they will be consuming less of all our traditional proteins such as fresh fish and shell fish.

Exactly similar processes are at work when noodles or rice companies compete through pervasive advertisements which increase the consumption of all noodles and rice, and decrease the consumption of traditional carbohydrates (as the facts clearly indicate).

Why does the Ministry of Education allow such advertising schemes which use children’s need for educational products, to influence families decisions on what protein to buy or not to buy?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Ministers, mud crabs and bio-diversity

For several years members of the public have complained that Bainimarama’s ministers (Lands and Environment) have given permission for the reclamation of mangroves (tiri) for commercial development, even though there is no shortage of land for commercial or residential development in Fiji.

 Mangroves are still being destroyed by ministerial decree, such as between Grantham Road and Fletcher Road, Parliament and Nasese, Veisari, and even at Draunibota Bay (Lami) where the locals are still struggling against marine reclamation.

Also being destroyed are the marine habitats for many species, including mud crabs and countless others which are essential parts of the marine food chain in neighboring marine areas, and part of the food security of Fijians.

Then the public reads (Fiji Times, 2 April 2015) that the Prime Minister is releasing baby mud crabs in the same Draunibota Bay, declaring “”Thanks to the efforts of the Crab Company of Fiji, we humans are giving these little creatures a leg-up and the best possible chance to grow into adults”.

Except that while some humans are giving the little creatures “a leg up”, other ministerial humans are utterly destroying them.

Even the Consumer Council treads carefully where the powerful forces in Fiji are concerned.

These are not new issues I am raising: they have been raised before.  Read the articles here:

https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/the-big-macs-are-coming-nutrition-regression-in-free-markets-daily-post-29-oct-1998/

and

https://narseyonfiji.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/the-advertising-war-sex-and-more-sex-daily-post12-november-1998/

I suspect that five years from now, given current trends, all the good efforts of the Ministry of Health and nutrition officials, will have been a total failure, against the marketing onslaught of private companies who have the support of thoughtless ministers.

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With the blessing of the Ministry of Education, the Coca Cola Games torch is now carried throughout hundreds of schools, with students and teachers lined up to honor it and implicitly, the product of course. While the soft drink vending machines are everywhere, there is little attempt to ensure that clean piped water is available for the thousands of children to drink as the better healthier thirst quenching drink.
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Also being destroyed are the marine habitats for many species, including mud crabs and countless others which are essential parts of the marine food chain in neighboring marine areas, and part of the food security of Fijians. Then the public reads (Fiji Times, 2 April 2015) that the Prime Minister is releasing baby mud crabs in the same Draunibota Bay, declaring “”Thanks to the efforts of the Crab Company of Fiji, we humans are giving these little creatures a leg-up and the best possible chance to grow into adults”. Except that while some humans are giving the little creatures “a leg up”, other ministerial humans are utterly destroying them.
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Christmas Treat: The Bainimarama Clan
15 Comments
Chiku
4/4/2015 06:32:28 am

Any undernourished government minister in Fiji needing free milk and weetbix?
So long as the ministers are well fed the country is doing alright. After all they are the important people on whom the country is dependent. Not the ordinary citizens.

Reply
Dekho
4/4/2015 03:01:10 pm

There are different ways of buying political influence. This free milk and Weetbix distribution is one way. How much did the milk company and the Weetbix company donate to the Fiji First Party's election campaign? Is this a case of you scratch my back and I scratch yours deal between the political and economic elite ?

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Vili
4/4/2015 05:49:22 pm

So how much dalo and yam does Waden Narsey personally consume per week viz a viz the imported rice and flour (roti's) that he decries others consuming in lieu of the former?

As a roti muncher himself he should tell us.

Too much 'do as I say and not as I do". Its called hypocrisy!

Reply
orzy
6/4/2015 12:49:51 pm

Fathom what he says. Narsey is an intellect and one of Fijis best. He is amongst the few who stand against injustice when everyone's had their tails spiraled downward curved in Btw his articles are statistical and factual. Prudent for you and me is to understand, live the reality of what's happening and come up with what must be done.

So
4/4/2015 05:06:16 pm

So go where is the much TALKED about " paradigm change " that Bainimarama and his ideological/ intellectual propagandists talked about if they are carrying on in the same old style of politics - being in the pocket of the big business wallahs and making political decisions in their favour?
The Shirley Park decision is still very fresh in our minds in this context.

Reply
Shannon
5/4/2015 01:21:38 am

Let Wadan ramble for too long and pretty soon he'll tell you that even the yams and cassava are bad for the children of Fiji because if they continue to eat only yams and cassava, there will be non left to export soon.

The man is never happy. He's like Scrooge - always looking for the worst in everything.

Obviously retirement is not going well for him.

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Rp
6/4/2015 07:56:49 pm

Hear hear Shannon

You do hear more than you read and you are still taking the long serving professor, who has attained, much in his revered professional, to be rambling.

Please read some of his articles, understand those, and than understand the gravity of those articles he has published. you certainly have not been exposed to researches on the impact of processed so called health products by cereal company and the likes, laden with salt & sugar, so that it becomes an addiction.

The subject matter covered by the author is totally relevant, and it is a pity that the health professionals are not picking up this fight at a grander scale.

No wonder the saying that "common sense ain't that common" is becoming more applicable to Fiji situation.

Reply
Dekho
7/4/2015 06:59:35 pm

Warden is an intellectual class act.
Shannon is a shallow, superficial fact.

Reply
4Fiji
5/4/2015 03:28:42 pm

Fiji is going through a record period of economic growth. Growth over 4% for 3 years in a row anx about to touch 5%. Instead of forever trying to harm Fiji how about working to help Fiji.

Reply
Rp
6/4/2015 08:14:40 pm

Debating and arguing a point either way, does not harm a subject matter. In fact it is healthier to foster that environment. I am however, bewildered by your point in regards to the economy, when the input to the final results are all subject to question?? The RBF, has been seen to favour and doctor outcomes as per set agenda, and now we hear the Bureau of stats data is being monitored and released upon approval of Cabinet. WHY?. What happens to the data in-between the period, until its spit out. What is the credibility of the data that is being delivered to the researchers and end users. How reliable is it?

The outcome is only as good as the input. this is the same argument that logical thinking people were posed with are pondering day in/day out. "If all the inputs to the election, (constitution, Electoral Commission, the Commissioners, Election staff, Election counting process, media, you name it, etc,) are compromised at will and whim, how can you declare the output to be just and fair. EVER HEARD OF A CONCEPT CALLED 'PLAIN PLAYING FIELD'.

Reply
Chikuu
7/4/2015 07:02:22 pm

If Fiji is going through record period of economic growth why do people from overseas have to collect money to paint government owned Natabua High School?

Reply
Fiji's Economic Growth
6/4/2015 10:44:58 am

Fiji will continue to grow as long as we have sustainable democracy and sound policy initiatives by the government. This way people will pay increased taxes to allow government to provide better services such as education, health, infrastructure, aged pension, policing etc.

So economic progress and growth of recent years can be directly attributed the resilience of it's people and increased investment in traditional sectors,tourism, construction etc.

Government should initiate policies in creating new and sustainable policies that will cater new industries that will derive export dollars and create permanent jobs.

There is no such indications of emerging new markets, and the growth figures of recent times tells everyone the harm military intervention does to the economy.

Reply
Tattoo
7/4/2015 09:11:48 pm

Its a matter of choice. Parents can choose to give their children yams if they think it is good for them and if they are happy to provide it. There is nothing wrong with weetbix and milk, weetbix and milk is recommended diet for the All Blacks - I am sure there aren't too many nasties in it. Yes its imported, but Dr Narsey should advocate exports in lieu of imports - we will never be able to stop consumerism in a capitalist society, so why not embrace it. Send some coconut water to US and Taro and Pawpaw to NZ so that the iphone our economists are so fond of doesn't deplete our foreign reserves that much.

Reply
Ernie Smith
22/4/2015 12:39:48 am

I will comment detail later.

Reply
Felicia vatucicila
22/4/2015 12:46:19 am

My comment is if we create industries, this will create jobs now, and in the future This will stop the flow of Fijians to other parts of the world, This will help to build the Fijian economy; thus making Fiji a better place to live.

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