Monday, September 11, 2006
A black day in Tonga.
The king of Tonga has died after a 41-year reign. Among his other accomplishments, he once lost a third of his body weight.
At age 14, the future king was one of Tonga's top athletes: He could pole vault more than nine feet; played tennis, cricket and rugby; and rowed competitively in a racing skiff.
Like many of his countrymen, he became obese and remained so for most of his adult life.
In the 1990s, King Tupou IV led his 108,000 people on a diet and exercise regime aimed at cutting the levels of fat in a nation where coconut flesh and mutton flaps are dietary staples.
From a weight listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the heaviest for any monarch -- 462 pounds -- the king shed about 154 pounds.
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According to this site, it sounds like it's a fatty portion of the sheep that New Zealanders won't eat:
Around one third of New Zealand's meat exports into the Pacific are a fatty waste product known as "mutton flaps". A 2001 World Health Organisation report drew explicit links between dependence on imported foods, especially mutton flaps, diet-related disease and trade liberalisation.(36) It found that, despite effective education and awareness programmes, people were making economically rational, but nutritionally detrimental, decisions to eat less healthy foods because they were cheap and available. That year Fiji, a WTO Member, announced a ban on mutton flaps, citing proven links to obesity; New Zealand threatened action at the WTO.(37) Tonga then urged the New Zealand government to end mutton flap exports and encourage a return to healthier traditional diets, such as fish, organic chicken (38) and taro that simply can't compete in Tonga's small domestic market. one New Zealand MP replied that Tongan businesses had the right to decide what to import.(39) At the same time, one of New Zealand's aid (NZAID) priorities is to fund health programmes in Tonga.
Around one third of New Zealand's meat exports into the Pacific are a fatty waste product known as "mutton flaps". A 2001 World Health Organisation report drew explicit links between dependence on imported foods, especially mutton flaps, diet-related disease and trade liberalisation.(36) It found that, despite effective education and awareness programmes, people were making economically rational, but nutritionally detrimental, decisions to eat less healthy foods because they were cheap and available. That year Fiji, a WTO Member, announced a ban on mutton flaps, citing proven links to obesity; New Zealand threatened action at the WTO.(37) Tonga then urged the New Zealand government to end mutton flap exports and encourage a return to healthier traditional diets, such as fish, organic chicken (38) and taro that simply can't compete in Tonga's small domestic market. one New Zealand MP replied that Tongan businesses had the right to decide what to import.(39) At the same time, one of New Zealand's aid (NZAID) priorities is to fund health programmes in Tonga.
It's my understanding that a "mutton flap" is that delightful thatch of bailey quarters' gorgeous tresses that hangs down just below her fashionable hair clip.
Fashion gods, please, please bring back Sigourney Weaver's mega-shoulder pads ("Working Girl", not "Aliens"), and Irene Cara's legwarmers and ripped sweatshirt from "Flashdance".
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Fashion gods, please, please bring back Sigourney Weaver's mega-shoulder pads ("Working Girl", not "Aliens"), and Irene Cara's legwarmers and ripped sweatshirt from "Flashdance".
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