Obesity in New Zealand

Obesity, a major contributor to death around the world and one of most common factor in developing type 2 diabetes among individuals. Obesity is the accumulation and build up of fat within the body and an individual maybe considered obese if they exceed a certain number in the body mass index. However this measurement is very inaccurate that an athletic person can be obese , according to the body mass index, even if they're not. As we know obesity can lead to type 2 diabetes. A person may be obese if their body fat is 20% or more over an individuals ideal body weight. Obesity, if acquired, can have many implication to the body like high blood pressure, stroke, cancer and especially type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is a condition where the body doesn't produce enough insulin, or simply the cells in the body does not recognize the insulin that are present but both have the same result of having high levels of glucose in the blood. This effects the way the body regulates sugar (glucose), the main source of energy required for our bodies to function. Type 2 diabetes can develop slowly over a long period of time and occurs mostly to the elderlies but over the past few years, type 2 diabetes is becoming more common to many young people in New Zealand. There are plenty of implications of type 2 diabetes on our bodies and a lot of it are long term effects. This increases the risk of many cardiovascular problems such as heart attack, narrowing of arteries and the risk of stroke is 2 to 4 times higher in people with type 2 diabetes. Both obesity and diabetes can be acquired through wrong lifestyle but and even sometimes just due to genetics. Eating wrong food for a long period of time may well lead to these. However on rare cases, obesity and type 2 can be passed down generations to generations.

Type 2 diabetes is usually the case of an individuals body system of being unable to produce/ resisting the effect of insulin in the body. After a meal has gone from your mouth down to the gut, B cells from the pancreas act as receptors for when insulin is needed to be produced by the pancreas. The pancreas is adjacent to the gut on the portal vein which drains nutrients from the gut to the liver. As the food we take gets converted to glucose and released into the blood stream, the B cells sense that there is a rise of glucose level in the blood stream. Our body has a tendency of keeping things balanced so what the body will try to do is lower the glucose level and this is where the insulin plays its part. Glucose are a pretty big molecule to enter a cell and needs but an insulin works by acting as a receptor on the membranes of fat, muscle and liver cells. This will trigger a vesicle with glucose channels in it to bind to the cell membrane and this channel will allow glucose to enter the cell. But such as people with type 2 diabetes, their body is failing to respond to the effect insulin and is unable to use insulin effectively so glucose is going to start to build up in their blood stream which will lead to hypoglycemic. Diabetes is diagnosed if a person, using methods such as oral glucose test, fasting plasma glucose and random glucose test, all turns out positive. Most food we consume are directed for energy purposes but there are vast variety of food and the body has ways to treat different food differently. Take meats for example, meat contains protein which is broken down into amino acids which is vital for building muscle cells. Fatty acids gets absorbed from the blood to fat cells, muscle cells and liver cells. In these cells under the influence of insulin, fatty acids are made into fat molecule and then stored as fat droplets.

The environment can definitely have an influence on developing obesity and type 2 diabetes. Take less economically developed country such as Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan and Ghana compared to New Zealand. These undeveloped countries is very limited in sources not just infrastructural but also food. Being a developed country, New Zealand will have better access to food, fast and cheap food that is. But in the 3rd world country, food aren't cheap and even if they were, it would just be basic food such as rice and water. Also environment in terms of country, the media will also play a big role especially through advertising. Million and millions of dollars are literally spent just on advertising fast food products such as Mcdonalds, Burger King and KFC. These promotes their food which is all over the media and this give rise to many people buying these either knowing or not knowing it health risk it presents. Since the modern society is connected mostly by social media, this has allowed many fast food companies to take advantage of it.

According to the “NZ Herald Cover” published in May 24th 2013, shows a data compiling 10 countries that is in the 50 heaviest countries. New Zealand was placed 2nd with a whopping average adult weight of 81.3 kg. How ever there are few bias in this as New Zealand is a multicultural country which are populated by many Pacific Islanders. The Pacific group has the highest rate of obesity of 64 percent among all Pacific Islanders in NZ, Maori has a 44 percent rate, European and others at 26 percent while only 16 percent of Asians are obese in NZ.how Another bias this presents is how the weights were calculated. It points out that the weight were calculated using the Body Mass Index formula. As I stated at the very beginning, this is inaccurate because according to the formula, the variables are only the weight and height. Not even the waist size is considered which can easily be enough to tell whether ones obese or not.
After identifying the biased in this source, we can say that this is half reliable as its not accurate data but still shows that NZ is top 2 among 50 of the heaviest countries in the world.

On the more positive side of all this, there are treatments and ways of preventing obesity and type 2 diabetes. The most and obvious and simplest way is to be active, exercise and have a healthy life style. Exercising reduces the body's need for insulin by keeping your weight down. It also increases the body's sensitivity to insulin so glucose is used more effectively. As long as there is enough insulin in the body, muscles will burn the glucose during exercise and will naturally reduce the blood glucose level. Also this can easily be avoided through common sense, keeping in mind that “you are what you eat.” Nonetheless on a more extreme case of diabetes like insulin resistance, there are a few last line of defense to try and combat type 2 diabetes. One way to treat type 2 diabetes is to physically inject insulin into the body to try and lower the glucose level in the blood stream. Another way is to take drugs like an aspirin-like compound (salicylates) which stimulate the secretion of insulin to try lower glucose level. Though both these methods presents disadvantages such as unknown long term effects on the body and both these have to be tracked and monitored which is time consuming.

There are many diets out there that helps reduce the risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes. One is the Atkins diet which is aimed at controlling levels of insulin though our diet. By limiting the amount of carbohydrate intake and switching the body's metabolism from metabolizing glucose for energy, it is aimed to convert stored fat as an energy source. But vitamins, supplements, minerals as well as regular exercise. Another diet is somewhat similar to the Atkins diet which is Grant Schofield's low carb high fat diet. According to Schofield, by consuming high healthy fat food like as almonds, avocadoes and salmon, over time will metabolize fat rather than glucose. This makes sense as the body can use fat as a source of energy and due to the diet requiring you to consume least amount of carbohydrate. By having high healthy fat in the system but at the same time very low carbohydrate, this will promote and use fat as a substitute for making energy for the body and will eventually burn fat. Though these diets present disadvantages especially for Schofield's diet. High healthy fat foods cost much more than regular food and maintaining this diet will be difficult due the cost. In Atkins diet,metabolic processes involved in using fat for energy instead of carbohydrates can lead to increased uric acid and ketones which can cause kidney problems, gout and headaches.

There are many viewpoints towards this issues, some are happy with the shape and size their and some disgusted when they see an overweight person. Another report by “The NZ Herald” stated “obesity, rather than tobacco-related disease, will affect more people's health in the future.” This suggests that New Zealand's obesity epidemic has to be lowered and that if we stick to the current lifestyle we are at the moment NZ will take out the top place for the most overweight country. Also a report by Martin Johnston suggest the rate of type 2 diabetes among children in Greater Auckland has shot up five-fold in 13 years, prompting debate on lowering the age for obesity surgery. Ninety per cent of the 52 children in the study were of Pacific Island or Maori ethnicity and the age range at referral to the hospital's diabetes clinic was 7 to 15. This recommends that surgery is needed to be made available at a younger age due to many young people having obesity and type 2 diabetes.

There are plenty of strategies and plans in combating the obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic. The most obvious one is making the right choices when buying fast food. Choosing the food that will give you health benefits but also keeps your tummy satisfied. But the strategy I propose for combating these epidemics is adding government service taxes (gst) to fast food and decreasing the cost on more healthier options. The term 'fast food' relates in specializing in food that can be prepared and served quickly and is designed for ready availability, use and consumption. By defining what the fast food actually means can make this strategy a tad bit simpler. Adding gst to fast food will cover mainstream restaurant like KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King and especially McDonald’s but also to many fish and chips takeaways. New Zealand is famous for its fish and chips and many NZ'ers purchases this for such little cost. In fact compared to healthier options like sushi and salads, $5 is well enough to get food from these fast food restaurant and that the healthier options are usually $8 and even higher. By adding gst to fast food it will hopefully draw away consumers and go for the cheaper options. So by switching prices of healthier fast food for unhealthy fast food this will try to encourage people to buy the healthier cheaper food.

But this will present many many complications because adding gst to a broad subject like fast food will cost a lot of money and many fast food companies will do anything to sell their food. Another one is the advertising of their products and the amount of money they spend trying to grasp adult's and children's attention. Especially young children are targeted, take McDonald's figure for example. A clown that some children are afraid of but most of the time they love. This suggest why many youngsters in NZ are obese due to the fact that they are lured to this business. The advertising is hard to combat and this will make the succession of my proposal strategy less effective. Also the challenge of getting the message across of buying healthier food over fast food is a challenge that will be hard to overcome. Also this will have to be passed down the law in order for it to take effect this will take time. This strategy is aimed towards people with obesity and and type 2 diabetes but more importantly towards young growing children. To encourage children from buying healthier options over the fast food. But this won't have an immediate effect as people have become more attached to the taste and smell these fast food have. If this should take effect, I don't think that much people will pay much attention to the price they pay for their fast food and I think that for this to take effect, it will take as long as how fast food was established at the 1950's. But overall adding gst to fast food will make people think twice on what food to buy and on the current society NZ is at the moment where employment is hard to find, they will prefer food that are cheaper. My expected outcome for using this strategy is that people will ignore the prices and will just go out and buy their cheap burgers, fries, and soft drinks anyway. Even though fast food has only been around for less than 70 years, it has made people crave for it and it became necessary for people to have when going out.

During this research, I think that New Zealander's should just try combat this epidemic through common sense. Eating fast food is not bad but if consumed regularly can be problematic not just on the wallet but especially on the health of the body. The body will build up glucose in the body and will insulin will not work as effectively than it should making one type 2 diabetic. The children should be educated on which food are bad and good for you to make them aware that not all food should be consumed without knowing what it do to the body. By teaching kids the way different food are treated by the body, surely the 2nd place New Zealand in the top 50 heaviest countries will drop. By incorporating knowledge to the younger generations it will help them combat this deadly but preventable epidemics