Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 7, Number 7, 1 July 1990 — The Federal Government wants weight loss too! [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Federal Government wants weight loss too!

'Ai Pono, E Ola

By Terry Shintani, M.D., M.P.H.

Weight loss is by far the topic that more people ask me about than any other subject on nutrition. Someone who ean make a great deal of difference is finally doing the asking. That

"someone" is the Nahonal Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, in Washington, D.C. Several health professionals from Hawai'i including Noa Emmett Aluli, M.D., Claire Hughes, M.S., R.D., Brian Martin, M.D., and myself have been invited, along with health professionals from around the country, to present information on obesity in minority populations this August.

Why is this important? Why are they interested? Because obesity is related to all kind of disease. Not only in Hawaiians but in all people. It is related to heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. This is of particular importanee to Hawaiians because more Hawaiians die of these diseases than any other ethnic group in Hawai'i.

What is obesity? Obesity is being overweight by 20 percent of your weight for your height. What is the cause of obesity? The answer is not certain. In fact one of the surprising conclusions of some of the current research is that it may not be caused simply by overeating. This is in part based on the finding that we eat fewer calories as a nation but have more obesity than ever before.

Other research suggests that one of the main factors that cause obesity is the high fat content of today's diet as compared to the fat content in ancient times. Currently we eat roughly 40 percent of our calories in the form of fat or oil. Another factor may be that so mueh of our food is refined and does not have the bulk to fill our stomachs and make us feel satisfied.

Let me illustrate this last point. A typical luneh these days includes a quarter-pounder cheeseburger, fries and a shake. This adds up to a little over 1,200 calories. An average man would eat about 2,500 calories a day. Total weight of the fast food luneh is 1.4 pounds. The equivalent amount of food in a traditional Hawaiian diet such as the Wai'anae Diet weighs about 4.1 pounds. That is nearly three times as mueh food! Obviously anyone will feel more full on the same number of ealo-

ries if he or she ate over four pounds of food instead of 1.4 pounds. What is the cure for obesity? This is exactly what we tried to demonstrate in the Wai'anae Diet. We tried to demonstrate that a low fat diet that is high in bulk, such as the traditional Hawaiian diet, caused people to lose weight and keep it off. The results were dramatic. Some individuals lost as mueh as 30 pounds or more in less than one month. In my town and Kaneohe offices I treat people with traditional diets of different eultures and I get the same results.

Perhaps if there is a greater awareness at the federa! level of the health conditions that Hawaiians have, some of the problems may be addressed on a long term basis with dollars. This is the hope of those of us who are presenting this information in Washington as well as our many supporters.

Dr. Shintani, physician and nutritionist, is director of preuentiue medicine at the Wai'ane Coast Comprehensiue Health Center. A majority of the Health Center's 1 8,000 clients are of Hawaiian ancestry. Dr. Shintani is the host of a u>eekly talk show, "Nutrition and You" Mondays at 7 p.m. on KGU/AM 70.