THE belief that the health of indigenous Australians is the worst in the
world may have to be revised in the light of recent Sydney research. A group at
Prince of Wales Hospital has found that, as a result of changes in their diet,
Tongans and other South Pacific people are in even poorer shape.
In fact, obesity is pandemic in our region, and the report of Stephen
Colagiuri and his colleagues in the latest edition of the Australian Consumers鈥�
Association鈥檚 Health Reader paints a truly disturbing picture.
The people of Tonga have always been well built, but the study found their
average food energy intake has steadily increased since contact with European
culture. It is now three times the average for Australians. While the Tongan
diet is balanced, its sheer size means average fat intake is about 150 grams a
day, more than three times the recommended level. As a result Tongans have high
rates of obesity, diabetes and kidney disease.
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The diabetes problem is even worse on Nauru, where almost half the population
suffer from the disease. As a consequence, amputations are becoming increasingly
common. And on Tahiti, almost 90 per cent of the people are now classified as
overweight or obese. The problems are the result of the impact of a high-sugar,
high-fat Western diet on a people with a genetic predisposition to sturdy
build.
Although obesity is less of an issue in Australia and New Zealand,
nutritionists are nonetheless concerned about the diet of young people. Many
snack on 鈥渇ast foods鈥� that are high in salt, high in fats and heavily laced with
sugar. So I was alarmed to read that the Australia New Zealand Food Authority
(ANZFA) is considering removing warnings from labels about levels of sugar and
saturated fats.
The proposal, to be considered at the ANZFA meeting next week, would leave
manufacturers free to decide how much information they will provide on their
product labels about the sugar content and fat level in processed foods.
Apparently, in terms of nutrition, ANZFA does not feel sugar content is as
important as vitamin levels.
If the sugar information disappears from cereal packets, parents will not be
able to make sensible choices about the calorie intake of their children. Some
popular breakfast cereals are 40 per cent sugar, while healthier products have
sugar levels around 5 per cent.
Not surprisingly, the international company that makes some of the cereals
most packed with sugar and fat is backing the less informative labels. I hope
the health ministers who set policy for ANZFA come out strongly against the
idea.
Most Australians now know that their country鈥檚 performance at the Olympics
was dramatically boosted by the political changes in Russia. The end of the
Soviet Union and consequent economic chaos has brought some outstanding athletes
to this part of the world.
But Rory Maguire from the Faculty of Science at the University of New South
Wales (UNSW) has drawn attention to an equally dramatic brain gain. The School
of Physics at UNSW, for instance, now contains six ex-Soviet scientists. Not
only are they individually doing interesting science, but they are links into
what Maguire calls the 鈥渧ast diaspora of ex-Soviet scientists鈥� around the
world.
While it鈥檚 good to have them here, I would like to see Australia and New
Zealand encouraging their own bright young people into scientific careers,
rather than riding on the back of countries that put more emphasis on science
education.
One of the great urban myths is that the Internet consumes vast quantities of
electricity. A US report published last year claimed that office equipment used
13 per cent of that nation鈥檚 electricity, with the Net alone accounting for 8
per cent. It went on to predict that offices could be responsible for as much as
half the power demand by 2010. Based on this estimate, electricity utilities
have argued for greater freedom to build new power stations to meet the expected
increase in Internet use.
But the myth has been exploded by energy analyst Jonathan Koomey and his
colleagues at the US Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In a seminar at the
UNSW last week, he provided the results of a technical peer review of the energy
claims. A more realistic estimate of the power used for Internet activities in
the US, he said, is about one per cent of electricity use. The figures for
Australia and New Zealand are probably lower still.