Tapu Misa: Confessions of a born-again exercise evangelist

I wouldn't say that I was dragged into the gym kicking and screaming. No, I went quietly - if just a little resentfully.

Someone in my household signed me up, spouting something about being concerned for my health, rather than my figure, and pointing to some scary statistics about diabetes and heart disease.

Like those latest ones that appear just as we're all launching ourselves into the season of conspicuous consumption and over-indulgence.

Yes, we're in the midst of an epidemic - yawn - and, yes, our obesity rate has doubled in the past 25 years - double yawn - but what did that have to do with me?

It's not that I'm not interested in being healthy. It's just that I'd like to achieve it without an unseemly amount of sweating. I've been waiting patiently for the results of a study on how to become fit without moving a muscle, ever since I read (possibly on the first day of April) that scientists were trying to help paralysed people condition their muscles by getting them simply to think about exercise.

April Fools' Day or not, the prospect of toning up while lying on the couch seemed like an idea whose time had come. Since hearing of it I'd been working on perfecting the art of thinking about exercise. Which explains why I have a box full of exercise tapes that I've never actually inserted in the VCR. And why talking about some day joining the gym seemed sufficient evidence of my interest in matters healthy.

It's not that I'm lazy, just fond of idleness. It isn't easy to read a book while walking around the block. And besides, I might have had that gene that the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Louisiana says it's discovered, one that makes some people more prone to being couch potatoes.

If only my parents hadn't given the lie to this by discovering an enthusiasm for exercise in their old age. My dad, in particular, who, despite that athritic knee and a limp from his stroke a few years ago, runs - not walks - several kilometres a day and plays golf three times a week.

And then there were those irritating, nagging voices that kept intruding on my consciousness. My children, for example, taking the unreasonable stance that if I made them exercise, I should set an example. And my husband reminding me that I was at high risk of diabetes not only by being Polynesian and immobile but also because of family history. One of my cousins - lean, athletic, a former track and field representative for Samoa - developed diabetes in her 20s and died soon after. Another was diagnosed in her 50s, despite not being overweight.

In the end, I went to the gym to shut them up, tolerating the fresh-faced South African trainer who smilingly admitted to being a sadist before putting me through my paces to assess my fitness and give me the startling news that, after a couple of decades of studied idleness, I wasn't fit.

Not only was I only slightly better than comatose but a horrifying amount of me was composed of fat - I can't remember how much because I've blocked it out.

And here I am - a born-again gym enthusiast. Something akin to religious conversion has taken place. I say akin because, although persuaded of the benefits of exercise and sympathetic to the idea that my body is a sacred temple into which I must not allow overly large portions of taro and corned beef, a part of me insists that it is, nonetheless, my temple and one in which salad, sugar and sauvignon blanc should co-exist in perfect harmony.

Which probably explains why I haven't yet achieved my pre-childbearing form.

Never mind. I am in love with my gym, even if there have been times when I've wanted to send that personal trainer back to South Africa. No one wears lycra and most of us look like we could do with a workout or two. And because it costs roughly the same as a couple of Big Mac combos a week, there's a nice mix of folk.

I like the middle-aged couple who exercise together and then go for donuts; the unusually portly Indian woman who's in training so she can get into Air India; the grandmother who reads her book while doing a sedate turn on the treadmill; the Samoan guys who hog the weights during the lunch hour; and the cleaner, who works out in between cleaning the toilets.

And I like the fact that I feel so virtuous when I come out.

Which brings me back to religious conversions. The Pacific-health wing of the Counties Manukau District Health Board last week held a symposium to get churches to help it make Pacific Islanders healthier.

With a clientele more than 20 per cent Pacific Island and concentrated in areas such as Otara and Mangere, Counties Manukau faces some scary statistics. One of which is that, within five years, it'll have to open a new clinic with 20 dialysis stations every year to cope with demand.

General manager of Pacific health Margie Fepulea'i says that such frightening statistics have made it vital for the board to get "into the consciousness of the community" and "start a conversation between us and the church institutions which determine how our people feel and think about themselves".

It's a tactic that has already paid off. Listening to the community has already resulted in more than 90 per cent of Pacific under-5s being immunised against meningococcal disease, more than any other ethnic group in the Manukau region.

Now they just need to sow the same sense of urgency about diabetes and heart disease.

Fepulea'i says a few inspired churches are already making an effort, setting up health committees and inviting providers to run exercise classes, stop-smoking programmes and healthy cooking demonstrations. Her own church, PIC Otara, has made a commitment to keep its church and grounds smoke-free.

But to make a serious dent, the effort must be more widespread and concerted.

She admits there's still a stubborn insistence at one end of the continuum that the church's role shouldn't extend beyond spiritual guidance.

But most churches recognise that spiritual guidance isn't much use if most of your flock are dying before their time.