Too much junk food in Inuit diet
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By Emily Ford
eford@salisburypost.com
KANNAPOLIS — Eating less polar bear and drinking more soda pop has sickened many aboriginal people living near the North Pole.
The Inuit diet, once based on traditional foods like polar bear and seal, now consists of nearly 50 percent junk food, said Dr. Sangita Sharma, a nutritional epidemiologist at the N.C. Research Campus.
"Healthy choices are really limited at the top of world," said Sharma, who spoke Tuesday at a free lecture hosted by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Nutrition Research Institute.
Rates of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and other diet-related diseases are rapidly increasing among the Inuit, Sharma said. Her research team, which is based in Kannapolis at the biotech campus, recently completed a study of four Arctic communities.
Although the Canadian government spends $65 million a year subsidizing food costs in the Arctic, an eight-pack of yogurt still costs $28, Sharma said.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are rare and expensive.
But junk food, which is nonperishable in the harsh conditions, is readily available. Nearly 75 percent of the people in Sharma's study are obese or overweight.
The Inuit still eat traditional foods like musk ox and fish twice a day, but they eat junk food five or six times a day. Many lack education about good nutrition.
"People think that feeding a bottle of orange Gatorade is like giving a bottle of orange juice," she said.
Sharma's project, Healthy Foods North, is an intervention program that tries to increase physical activity, encourage the use of traditional foods and teach people how to shop for healthy store-bought foods in the Northwest Territories.
Using a unique approach that coaxes people to identify their own nutrition problems and solutions, Sharma's team helped the communities slash their consumption of junk food while increasing fruits, vegetables, grains and traditional meals, she said.
"I'm very against having a top-down approach and saying 'We'll do it this way,' " she said. "We know that doesn't work."
After the intervention, junk food consumption had fallen by 500 percent.
Initially, community members gathered to discuss "problem foods," Sharma said. Then they voted on the best solution.
Using the community's input, Sharma's team developed intervention programs, including pedometer challenges, radio and TV announcements, taste tests and cooking classes.
They taught people how to add beans, lentils and frozen corn to meals, stretching them and making them healthier.
Instead of chips for a snack, they encouraged people to try dried fruit. Instead of whole milk in coffee, they suggested skim.
They promoted traditional foods, both for the nutrients they provide and the exercise they require.Most team members returned in December, and two remain in the Arctic. Sharma said data are still being analyzed, but initial results show the program boosted the consumption of zinc, folate, calcium, iron and vitamins A, B, C, D and E, among other nutrients.Sharma said she hopes to follow the communities for several years, determining if they continue their new eating patterns.
The lifespan for someone in the Arctic is 12 years less than the average Canadian. Few communities have physicians, and nurses often have inadequate training. Health screenings like mammograms are rare.
Sharma, who studies the relationship between nutrition, ethnicity and disease, has a special interest in learning how nutrients interact with genes, especially genes that cause cancer.
While she has research projects all over the world, Sharma said the Arctic is her favorite.
"This is a very hot topic, climate change," she said. "We know about polar bears and caribou and the problems they're having, but the people who live with those animals are also very vulnerable to climate change."
She said her research will help determine how global warming is changing aboriginal people's eating habits and their risk of disease.
E-mail to a friend
eford@salisburypost.com
KANNAPOLIS — Eating less polar bear and drinking more soda pop has sickened many aboriginal people living near the North Pole.
The Inuit diet, once based on traditional foods like polar bear and seal, now consists of nearly 50 percent junk food, said Dr. Sangita Sharma, a nutritional epidemiologist at the N.C. Research Campus.
"Healthy choices are really limited at the top of world," said Sharma, who spoke Tuesday at a free lecture hosted by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Nutrition Research Institute.
Rates of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and other diet-related diseases are rapidly increasing among the Inuit, Sharma said. Her research team, which is based in Kannapolis at the biotech campus, recently completed a study of four Arctic communities.
Although the Canadian government spends $65 million a year subsidizing food costs in the Arctic, an eight-pack of yogurt still costs $28, Sharma said.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are rare and expensive.
But junk food, which is nonperishable in the harsh conditions, is readily available. Nearly 75 percent of the people in Sharma's study are obese or overweight.
The Inuit still eat traditional foods like musk ox and fish twice a day, but they eat junk food five or six times a day. Many lack education about good nutrition.
"People think that feeding a bottle of orange Gatorade is like giving a bottle of orange juice," she said.
Sharma's project, Healthy Foods North, is an intervention program that tries to increase physical activity, encourage the use of traditional foods and teach people how to shop for healthy store-bought foods in the Northwest Territories.
Using a unique approach that coaxes people to identify their own nutrition problems and solutions, Sharma's team helped the communities slash their consumption of junk food while increasing fruits, vegetables, grains and traditional meals, she said.
"I'm very against having a top-down approach and saying 'We'll do it this way,' " she said. "We know that doesn't work."
After the intervention, junk food consumption had fallen by 500 percent.
Initially, community members gathered to discuss "problem foods," Sharma said. Then they voted on the best solution.
Using the community's input, Sharma's team developed intervention programs, including pedometer challenges, radio and TV announcements, taste tests and cooking classes.
They taught people how to add beans, lentils and frozen corn to meals, stretching them and making them healthier.
Instead of chips for a snack, they encouraged people to try dried fruit. Instead of whole milk in coffee, they suggested skim.
They promoted traditional foods, both for the nutrients they provide and the exercise they require.Most team members returned in December, and two remain in the Arctic. Sharma said data are still being analyzed, but initial results show the program boosted the consumption of zinc, folate, calcium, iron and vitamins A, B, C, D and E, among other nutrients.Sharma said she hopes to follow the communities for several years, determining if they continue their new eating patterns.
The lifespan for someone in the Arctic is 12 years less than the average Canadian. Few communities have physicians, and nurses often have inadequate training. Health screenings like mammograms are rare.
Sharma, who studies the relationship between nutrition, ethnicity and disease, has a special interest in learning how nutrients interact with genes, especially genes that cause cancer.
While she has research projects all over the world, Sharma said the Arctic is her favorite.
"This is a very hot topic, climate change," she said. "We know about polar bears and caribou and the problems they're having, but the people who live with those animals are also very vulnerable to climate change."
She said her research will help determine how global warming is changing aboriginal people's eating habits and their risk of disease.
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