Eating disorders and western diet

[LarryB]

Hi, Jeff. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist (I met you at the recent 10-day program), I know that eating disorders really took off in the early 1980's. After listening to your talks, I noticed that this was the same time that the standard American diet changed in such an unhealthy direction. I also know that eating disorders took off in Fiji in the early 1990s when western TV came to the islands. The usual interpretation is that exposure to a thin western body image as ideal affected the young girls and encouraged dieting and then anorexia. I wonder if western processed and packaged foods also came to Fiji at that time.

I would like to find out when western food arrived in Fiji, to see whether it might have been the food, rather than the TV images, which led to more eating problems. Could you direct me to any resources which might have that information?

All the best,

Larry

[JeffN]

Hi Larry

It was a pleasure to meet you last week.

Here are some article from The WHO/FAO that may answer your question.

ftp://ftp.fao.org/es/esn/nutrition/ncp/FIJmap.pdf

http://www.fao.org/ag/agn/nutrition/fij_en.stm

Also, the food consumption slides I presented on the USA data are made from the USDA ERS Food data.

WHO/FAO keeps similar data for many countries around the world. However, either the website is down right now, was moved/renamed and/or being rebuilt. If I re-find it, I will send it to you.

I also thought this article may be of interest.

http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Q_%26_As/E ... order.html

In Health
Jeff

[LarryB]

Thanks, very much, Jeff,

This observation was helpful:

"This change is characterized by an increase in the consumption of cereals, animal fat and processed imported foods, along with a decrease in the consumption of traditional root crops and other local food products, especially for Fijians"

I think I going to have to explore increasing the proportion of whole plant foods with my bulimic patients to perhaps increase satiety and lessen "pleasure trap" kinds of reactions.

Larry

[JeffN]

"This change is characterized by an increase in the consumption of cereals, animal fat and processed imported foods, along with a decrease in the consumption of traditional root crops and other local food products, especially for Fijians"

My guess, without being able to access the actual numbers right now, the increase in cereals is in refined and/or highly processed calorie dense cereal food products.

In Health
Jeff

PS I just found the redone website with the food balance data, Here it is

http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS

It may take a bit to figure out how to use it but if you have any questions, let me know