Eating Is Life

Life style desease is on the rise in the Pacific Island nations today. When I grew up during the late 1960s and 1970s life style desease was almost not heard about.Today more than 70 percent of patients admitted in hospitals throughout Solomon Islands is due to the way people eat.

Imported processed food is the main cause of life style desease. In Solomon Islands the importation of rice is very high and even in villages in the rural area , people eat more rice than locally grown root crops which was used to be.

Moreover, other imported processed foods like noodle, sugar, and canned foods are and have become the stable diet among the city dwellers.And this has also infiltrated into the villages in the rural areas.The main reason is because imported food stuff are easy to access and can quickly cooked and eaten.

While most of the people live in the villages, migration into the urban areas are on the increase and it is estimated that if this continues the population in the towns will overtake that of the villages in the rural area, in 50 years' time.

The government through the agriculture department is encouraging the people to grow local food crops and vegetables and now is trying to decentralize developmwnts by creating growth centers in the rural areas but none of these ideas seems to materializing due to lack of political will and the continuos instability in leadership.

Unless the government is serious in addressing the issue of growing the local foods , deseases related to change of the way people eat will contnue to increase, especially in this generation whose eating habits has changed to the increase of imported foods.

Jeffrey Aihunu