Joel Maxwell (Te Rarawa) is an experienced senior journalist and Stuff’s kaiwhakamāori/translator.
OPINION: No miracle can be measured, no potential can be quantified.
So it is at birth we are weighed for the first and possibly only time without judgment. In fact, to the gathered cooing adults, it’s reassuring if we ping into the world with a healthy amount of mass.
Speaking of potential, we’ve had another recent arrival catching coos, named Ozempic along with siblings Trulicity, Victoza and Saxenda. (Who comes up with these names?)
You’ve probably heard of them ‒ diabetes meds co-opted on a global scale as very effective weight loss meds. Not since blood-pressure medication Viagra have surprise results been so readily embraced.
Read this story in te reo Māori and English here. / Pānuitia tēnei i te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā ki konei.
Some are Pharmac-funded as diabetes meds, others can be bought on prescription for about $500 a month but a global shortage means they’re rationed.
Obviously if ‒ and only if ‒ global supply stabilises, I think we should consider funding Ozempic-type drugs as weight-loss medication as well. The idea has expert support.
This would not be aimed at weight loss for its own sake, but health benefits from even moderate downsizing.
As the stats show, this would particularly help Māori and Pasifika. In fact, if this could be targeted to Māori and Pasifika people that would be even better.
Obesity is a disease that increases risk of diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnoea, high blood pressure and other problems.
One in three adult New Zealanders is obese (with a body mass index of 30-plus). As always, things are much worse for Māori ‒ one in two adults is obese. Three out of four Pasifika are obese too.
Of course, general anti-obesity contempt (of which there is plenty) takes a nasty racial tinge when it comes to Māori and Pasifika: A double-helping of racial and they-bring-it-on-themselves idiocy.
But higher obesity rates are just another prong on inequality’s fork.
Yeah, I know, I’m always banging on about inequality. Maybe I should give it a cooler name. If it helps, let’s call it The Pattern. It’s a weird “anomaly” where Māori are treated worse in the health system, the criminal system, the justice system, the education system; and we’re poorer, on average, sicker, on average, paid less, on average.
We live shorter lives, on average, and apparently, for good measure, a lot of those lives are now spent being obese.
Relative poverty, systemic and institutional racism, cheap junky food: The Three Horsepeople of the Fatpocalypse are busting down our doors and slapping the carrot out of our hands.
That Western-style poverty makes us fatter, not skinnier, just shows what a malicious jerk inequality ‒ sorry, The Pattern ‒ can be.
So it’s a rarity in life to take the easy way out of a problem while knowing it happens to be the best way. But that’s what we might have with these meds.
Doing it the old-fashioned way with only willpower, moderation and exercise is kinda BS. I know how difficult it is, and even if some people can do it without help, it doesn’t mean we all can.
So as far as I’m concerned, you can take your personal responsibility and jab it with the inequality fork.
And yes, we should probably also tighten regulations on junk food, introduce the likes of sugar taxes and marketing controls.
Because, let’s face it, nutrition is so last century.
In this age of ultra-processing, what even is food when it comes completely unmoored from nutrition?
At some point it loses its point, except as just another commodified addiction, just more molecules to be trafficked, another carefully curated set of flavoured compounds-for-sale. Food as an insult to our autonomy.
The business of industrialising addictions, whether online or in real life, is booming ‒ the world is getting stickier, and food is just another trap on the growing list.
Sitting at 96kg and 180cm tall, I am BMI-wise considered “overweight”, a shade under “obese”, although I blame The Twins, aka Lefty and Biceptimus Prime, for that.
Joking aside, society demands that we be skinny for lousy six-pack aesthetics but doesn’t care if we’re healthy. We’re in a hilariously one-sided battle against a culture/industry that holds all the sweet, salty, deliciously greasy cards.
And I know, it just seems wrong that industrialised pharma then rides to the rescue.
But given I’m just one cronut away from BMI obesity makes me think we should take any advantage we can get ‒ including amazingly effective drugs.
The true modern miracle would be that we might get equal access to miracles.
- Stuff
