Professor of Nutrition, Elaine Rush is a specialist in the field of body composition, energy expenditure and nutrition amongst different ethnicities, with a particular focus on Maori, Pacific Island, European and Indian populations in New Zealand. As Director of Body Composition and Metabolism at AUT University's Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research, Elaine explores the impact that food choices can have upon our lifestyle, health and wellbeing and discusses if we really are what we eat.
"Breaking the cycle of bad health behaviours starts with the right environment. There has been a push recently in policy, and in public opinion to some extent, toward the idea of diet and health being wholly about personal choice - the idea that education should be enough to make people make better food and lifestyle choices and to be healthy as a result.
This approach ignores the huge environmental factors that are at play.
So much of our long-term health is determined before we are even born. We all start from a single cell, fertilised egg, and by the time we are born 75% of our lifetime of cell divisions has taken place. Obesity and chronic disease such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease can have its origin in the nutrition of the mother while pregnant.
We are also eating too many calorie-dense but nutrient poor foods and, again, that is driven by environment and the availability of different foods. It seems that there is a mismatch between our environment and our ability to adapt to it. We are soaking in our environment and it is our children that will suffer.
In the future I think we need to make sure that as a research community, in talking to health professionals and to public through the media, we are giving out the same answers and that there are consistent messages about health. There can be a very narrow focus on one food or one nutrient or a certain body size as being the culprit or the saviour, but we need to continue to reinforce the big picture messages.
There are some simple changes that could make a real difference. Drink s with added sugar have been linked to childhood obesity - it would be a simple enough move to introduce a tax on them, it would bring money in for healthcare and it would make these drinks less available to those who should least be drinking them.
Alongside that move we need water to be freely and readily available in our parks, our shops and restaurants and our working and learning environment.
School programmes that provide nourishing food are a really valuable initiative; for our children to learn they need to be well-nourished. Even if we put aside our concerns for the health of today's children and tomorrow's - and I don't think we should - from an economic stand-point, New Zealand cannot afford to ignore obesity.
On average in a person's life they will have seven years of disability. This costs the country money that we don't have and the increasing incidence of obesity - and related health issues including diabetes and heart disease - means the cost to the country will grow exponentially. Our understanding has increased enormously over what is driving this disease.
My own research over recent years has shown the huge disparities in the physical make-up of different ethnic groups in New Zealand, with the two most different to each other being Indian and Pacific.
So for two people of the same weight and height, there would be much less fat and more muscle in the Pacific individual as compared to an Indian individual yet they have the same risk for diabetes.
This has huge implications for the way we screen and look for risk of obesity in different ethnic groups. Flowing on from this research is my involvement in a research project looking at the impact of a B12 supplement for pregnant Indian women which it is thought may have a positive effect on the fat-muscle ratio of their children and on the reduction of risk for future diabetes.
This research touches on one of the contradictions of obesity. More fat does not necessarily mean more nutrients. Obesity is a form of malnutrition - it is the result of an imbalance in the diet. Addressing these imbalances requires us to look at the environments that are seeding them."
Click here to find out more.
We can no longer afford to ignore obesity
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.