POLITICS OF OBESITY

There is considerable politics in this country in being fat. It was not always so. In early times, men and women lived a more simple and frugal life. They did not eat much meat but lived on a diet of fruit and vegetables. Many are still alive today, thin and healthy.

The old man at Naduri who comes out in his uniform to greet Kokoda trekkers claims to be 105 years old. As a Seventh Day Adventist, he has watched his diet throughout his whole life. Modern scientific experiments on rats show that those rats fed on a low-fat and low-protein diet lived longest and healthiest.

The sons of these people may well live on a diet of lamb flaps, tinned meat and beer and have put on much weight. They drive land cruisers and do very little exercise.

Gross obesity is taken in modern PNG to be the sign of a successful businessman who waddles not walks. He may well die of diabetes or high blood pressure in his early 50s.

Let us go back to the old people. Very old ladies tend to be skeletal thin. As they grow older, they are not able to make gardens as they used to and can not afford to buy tinned meat and lamb flaps. Their last fat was taken in giving birth 30 years ago. They are actually dropping in size and live on vegetables.

The opposite may be occurring to younger women. They have married, given birth and may be in their 30-40s. They live on a diet of fatty food.

They have another reason for being fat. They are passing the message to village men and women that their days of sex are over. They are out of the race. This is to keep other women happy that they have joined the ranks of the fatties.

Besides they have long realized that a plate of rice, kaukau, kumu, chicken and pork is far more satisfying than 3 minutes of sex with a fat, drunken husband.

They are telling women that they are no longer interested in men, particularly the husbands of other women. If their time was spent in jogging with tights and sweat band, they would be passing a very strong message to all that they are on the prowl and seeking sex. This would be a very foolish move.

It is all so logical. Women can not have it both ways. If saying that their days of sex are over they can not blame their husbands if they go out to seek younger women. They may also be telling younger women that their own husbands are on the prowl.

Younger women may be good looking and have no children or HIV/AIDS. Older women will bring into a relationship older children who may give problems.

A 17 year old son will have no loyalty to the man and may expect beer and cigarette money. He may want to fight in any argument. He may want to bring his mates to the house to watch the football and porno movies. Trouble.

There are women who play squash at the Holiday Inn. They pump iron and have not an ounce of fat. Living with white men, they are not in the least interested in what the village women think of them.

Many village women would regard them as sex workers. Their day will come within a decade or more. White men may then pass them over for younger women. They will then be trapped between two worlds, not yet ready to join the fatties. It’s a cruel world.

They socialize with white men and are on the prowl for younger and richer white men. They know that their present expatriate is married in Australia and will never take them home. So they are on the lookout at all times for a replacement.

There is a strange phenomenon sweeping Tonga and led by the king. Obesity is out and replaced by jogging, pumping iron, no more lamb flaps and cooking in coconut milk. Fat Tongans are part of the unhealthy past. Are the fat women going back into the race?