By B.B
For Horizon

While watching television some nights ago, a brief news summary by CNN appeared at the bottom of my screen, which said that according to a study by the World Health Organization (WHO), the people on the Western Pacific island countries have one of the highest incidences of obesity in the world. That jolted me wide awake. What Western Pacific Island countries are they talking about, I asked myself. What islands are considered Western Pacific Island countries as opposed to South Pacific Island countries? Nauru, Marshalls, FSM, the Marianas, and Palau? If these islands fit the bill, then we, in Palau, might be having obesity problems and we must do something to improve our health before we perish from this monster.
What is obesity? This term refers to fat people. The people suffering from this malady usually have double chins, fat cheeks, legs like banana trunks, and bulging stomachs that are seen first before the faces behind them come into view when they turn at the corners of buildings. We may be having many such individuals in Palau and the WHO report may be right in identifying our nation as one of the "Western Pacific Islands countries" populated with obese people
Obesity is a relatively new phenomenon on these islands. When I was a boy in the fifties, there was only one person in our village that possessed a big, protruding belly that might have qualified him for the term "obese", but that individual was tall and lanky and he didn’t stand out as someone suffering from obesity as we now understand the term. Back then, not many people in Palau could be classified as obese. Some decades ago, our athletes dominated all kinds of sports in Micronesia because they were slim and strong with healthy muscles on their bodies. Today, the situation has changed dramatically. You can see obese individuals, men and women and even children, everywhere you go—on the streets, in the stores, and at every public gatherings in town.
If I recall correctly, our Public Health people have been telling us time and time again to be judicious in selecting what we eat and to exercise frequently so that we would not end up as fat slobs or obese, as such people are politely called. I remember a story one doctor told of a man who visited him who was complaining of constant pains on his back. The doctor told him that he was having such pains because his protruding stomach was pulling his backbone forward and out of shape. "Reduce the size of your stomach and you wouldn’t have constant back aches", the doctor told his patient. There are many people out there suffering from the same ailment. They should take the doctor’s advice so that they can get into healthy shapes and not continue to be part of the "obese statistics" for the Western Pacific Island countries. Yes, my friends, if you get rid of those beer bellies you would be a happy citizen of our Western Pacific Island country of Palau.
Before we go, may we ask the Ministry of Health Services to give us an official advice on what we should do to stay trim and fit? What kind and how much food should we eat every day to stay fit and healthy? What kind of food should we avoid? What kind and how frequent should we perform exercises every day?