As Obesity Rises, Remote Pacific Islands Plan to Abandon Junk Food
While many governments struggle to ban soda to curb obesity, the tiny Torba Tourism Council in the remote Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is planning to outlaw all imported food at government functions
and tourist establishments across the province’s 13 inhabited islands.
Mr. Dini said that It showed that the government that had brought the ban in had no power.
Passing a more comprehensive ban on junk food imports to Torba could take at least two years, he added,
and a final decision on which products to ban would be made by the national government.
Elaine Rush said that It is so wrong what is being done to exploit these nations
by providing a food supply that is not, in the long term, better for health,
The ban, scheduled to take effect in March, comes as many Pacific island nations struggle
with an obesity crisis brought on in part by the overconsumption of imported junk food.
Public health experts who study the island nations of the Pacific welcomed the ban, saying
that bold measures were necessary for an impoverished and isolated region of 10 million people — one where the cost of sending legions of patients abroad for dialysis treatment or kidney transplants is untenable.
Still, Dr. Snowdon said, the taxes and prohibitions on drinks in the Pacific islands — along with education, food labeling
and school-nutrition programs — have not reduced the region’s overall incidence of obesity or its associated health problems.