Jamaica suddenly realises it has an Obesity Problem

In the 1970s, living to 100 in Jamaica was no big deal.   There were a lot of people above 80 who were active.  Although, today, 2017 we have the oldest living person in the world, 117,  the fact is, the number of people living to 80 today is falling.

Further, obesity levels are rising to such an extent that out of twenty women, seventeen are obese, whether by a few pounds or more than a few.

I am talking obese, meaning virtually circular.   Hugely fat.  Look twice fat.

Once, in the 1980s we were staring out of a window at this enormously fat women.  Today, every ten women is that fat.

Diabetes, something we never heard of in the 1980s is now common.   Every other person has diabetes.

Boys who played football in the 1980s are now fat men with huge bellies.   Women who used to strut in running suits are four times their size.

What happened?

1. Oil….  we used to use only pure coconut oil, much of it we made ourselves.  That and Olive Oil were the only oils we knew.  Then, suddenly, filling the shelves is the cheap trashy ‘vegetable oil’.   Not good.
2. Junk Food…  we never ate hamburgers, hotdogs, fried chicken, french fries…  I recall in 1982 taking a man and his son to a restaurant and the boy had never seen a hamburger or french fries.
3. Shunning of ‘Food’.    I Jamaica we term yam, cassava, potatoes and other ground provisions ‘food’.  We would have a plate of ‘food’ with maybe a small bit of meat or fish and vegetables.   Now, everyone stuffs on rice with great slabs of meat.  Especially the cheap fatty   cuts.
4. Sodas.   We used to drink coconut water.   Now, it’s all those sugar full fizzy drinks.
5. Sugar.   We used to eat brown sugar, very dark brown sugar with its lumps and all.  Now, sugar is that tiny salt looking thing that people dump into everything.

In ancient days, old people tended to be skinny.   Skinny and active.  Often they had a porridge for breakfast, be it cornmeal or peanut, and then a meal in the afternoon of ‘food’ and a bit of meat or fish.  That was pretty much how people ate.

They ate less, they lived longer, and they lived healthy.

Today, people are fat.  Flabby fat.   Bellies hanging over, thighs busting seams, and now that being skinny makes one odd the Government is looking into taking sweet drinks out of schools and having a push to not drink them.

Rather late.