Traditionally Samoa being an island in the Pacific Ocean, the people were more reliant on eating food from the sea and the land. Fish is still an important part of the diet but Samoan people are starting to rely more on canned food. Obesity became a problem for Samoa when canned goods were introduced to the islands and also more fast food companies like McDonalds were being built. The nutritional value of canned food and fast food is bad for your health because they are both high in salt and sugar; they can also affect your body poorly by making it unhealthy. Because of this change in diet the issue of childhood obesity in Samoa is a problem and a threat to the Samoan culture. The percentage of Samoans that are obese is 43.4 percent and that is almost half of the population for the paradise islands (Senthilingam). Now because of how high the percentage of obese people in Samoa, Samoan people need to exercise, eat better, and learn about processed food, so fewer people will become obese and have the medical problems associated with obesity. The threat is that it increases heart diseases and diabetes, which can kill a lot of Samoan people and would lead to a lower population of Samoans. This should interest other people because this could be one instance of a larger problem with food consumption all around the world. Obesity does not have an effect on only one country; it affects everybody. This problem can be resolved by having Samoan people to go back to their old eating habits and eating less processed foods from America. 

Fast food companies are one of the highest in the pecking order for contributing to people who are obese because of their use of processed food. There are people who are extremely addicted to drugs and alcohol, but there are also who are extremely addicted to fast food. All are extremely dangerous addictions and if you are not careful you will have health issues from all of them. People do not think that processed food is bad for your health but Morgan Spurlock in his documentary called Super Size Me proves that processed food is bad for your health. Morgan Spurlock filmed a documentary that looked at a month of his life. During the month Spurlock ate at McDonalds because there was a lawsuit that McDonalds was making people fat. Spurlock investigated by documenting what he ate and also documenting his health. Spurlock found that he did get fatter and his blood pressure was getting really high. Spurlock’s liver was also enlarged due to the amount of processed foods. Spurlock’s health depleting shows us that processed food is not good for a human being to eat on a daily basis. Spurlock is an example of what happens if a person eats processed food regularly. Although you see Spurlock’s health depleting in the movie; there were people in the movie who looked like McDonalds was in their price range with inexpensive food. Some people have no choice but to buy the crappy kind of food that McDonalds puts out because they cannot afford anything else. We live in a contradictory world where bad quality food is affordable and healthy food’s prices are jacked up sky high. The stores give the poor people only one option and that is to buy bad quality food that is cheap. 

People in Samoa are getting fatter because of the amount of processed food that is imported into the country from the mainland. Spurlock proves that processed food is bad for one person but processed food can also cause massive amounts of health problems that will not be good for your bill at the hospital later on. Spurlock proves that you can put on weight fast from processed food, but when it comes time for you to lose the weight for health purposes it takes six times longer to lose the weight. In Spurlock’s case, one month of eating McDonalds took him six months to lose the weight that he gained. Even though Spurlock ate at only one restaurant, that restaurant represents every other type of restaurants that serve unacceptable quality food. Unacceptable quality type of food causes you to have health problems by making you have high blood pressure or heart problems. This documentary can be shown to the young kids in Samoa so it can give them a warning of what bad imported food can do; this will hopefully help straighten their eating habits. This documentary can also be shown to the mothers who live in Polynesian Islands because the mothers can make a big difference since the children follow every move they do. Children typically learn their eating habits from their mothers and if the mother eats healthy then the child will also eat healthy.

Processed food has been proven to be very addictive just like drugs and alcohol. Ellen Lesser led a study that looked at rats who were becoming obese because they had a variety of options of junk food, and they chose what they wanted to do with the junk food. Lesser found that female rats were more addicted to junk food than male rats. This proves that food can be addictive at least for some types of rats. Studying rats is a good thing because we can compare them to human beings due to their bodily functions. Females being more addicted to junk food can also cause their offspring to genetically become more addicted to junk food. The female rats can relate to females in general but specifically Samoans because they rely on more processed foods due to the imported food from the mainland. Samoan females also have more children than a typical American female due to their religion because many of them are Catholic. When the women’s children see them get addicted to junk food then it is highly likely that their children will also get addicted to the same kind of food. If the mothers can teach their kids the right eating habits at an early age, then their kids will choose the right kind of food to eat as they grow older and mature into young men or women. Eating less processed food means that less people will get addicted to junk food and therefore there will be fewer people with obesity. 

Obesity is a big problem in the pacific islands and some scientists have tried to study why this is a problem in the Pacific Islands; Michael Curtis, a scientist, led a study that involved “The Obesity Epidemic in the Pacific Islands,” and he found that Pacific islanders are obese but they have also been known to be big boned people for a very long time (Curtis 37). In Curtis’s study, he mentions that Americans caused things like diabetes and other diseases when they started importing food into the country of Samoa (Curtis 38). Michael also mentions that before American food arrived to the Islands, Samoans used to grow food from the island and eat whichever animals inhabited the land. Back then they had a purpose, and that purpose was to go out and hunt food for their family. Samoans also used to take long voyages on boats to other undiscovered islands. On those voyages, the person who had the most body fat survived and those who had less body fat died of starvation (Curtis 37). The obesity epidemic in the Pacific Islands causes diabetes and other diseases, and this was caused by imported American processed food. Curtis proves that diabetes came from imported food from America so the Samoan people can learn about this and try to do something about it. Maybe converting to eating animals from the land like back in the day will be a good option and be healthier. 

Obesity can sometimes come off as a joke to some people and they need to know that it is not a joke; obesity is very deadly to humans if not taken care of properly. An author named Meera Senthilingam wrote an article on “How paradise islands became the world's fattest place”. Senthilingam’s main point of view in the article is that the Polynesian islands are very obese. She also points out that all of the food that the islands are eating is imported from America and the people do not get enough exercise. "It's a deadly epidemic," says Waqanivalu in Senthilingham’s article because of the high numbers in the Pacific Islands of obesity. A deadly epidemic in the Polynesians Islands means that people are dying of a heart attack. A deadly epidemic also means that high blood pressure is causing them to have a blood clot in their system which could possibly lead to death. Senthilingham argues about why imported food from the mainland is causing the Polynesian people to become obese. 

It is a known fact that the Polynesian Islands have been one of the most obese areas in the world and this should serve as a warning other countries. Maanvi Singh wrote an article that talks about Samoa being a harbinger for other countries. A harbinger is like an indicator of a warning for other people that something bad might come. In our case, Singh is warning other countries to stay away from fatty foods like the ones that America exports to the Islands. Singh also mentions in her article about the prices of imported food; imported food is cheap and it is easier to buy for the poor people. No matter how awful the food is for the body, poor people are always going to be tempted to buy that type of food because they do not have any money to buy healthier food like lettuce or fresh meat. According to the article that Singh wrote, Samoa is working on a resolution to fix the problem of obesity in Samoa. Although it is taking more time to fix the problem than it should, they are still doing something about it. It is important to remember that the Samoan government is not ignoring the problem of obesity and they are trying to do something about it at their own pace. 

Many scientists have tried to prove so many ways of how to get rid obesity and Zan Gao  has found a possible solution. Gao led a study of “the impact of junk-food diet during development on ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’”. Gao and his crew discovered that Physical Education classes should not be the only type of activity for children in elementary schools and that after school activities should be promoted more to increase health in children. The study also proved that children doing exercises throughout the day helped decrease their chances of becoming obese. This study proves that if Chinese children can decrease their numbers of becoming obese then Samoan children can also decrease their numbers of becoming obese too. Samoa is an island that is surrounded by sand and ocean water. Samoa could have more water sports for not only the children but also for the adults. If the water sports convince the children to stay more active, then family members around them will want to join the activity and have fun. Samoa is also a country where a lot of big athletes come out of; athletes play professional football in America and athletes from Samoa also dominate other races in rugby. If there were more organized sports in Samoa for children and teenagers, then there would not be a problem of people being obese. Having organized sports can also create opportunities for young mature adults to get a scholarship to a university of their picking. Having scholarly athletes from Samoa can help inspire others to become more active and improve their health while working hard for a chance to also earn a scholarship instead of being stuck on the island trying to find odd jobs so they can make money to take home to their family. 

The possible solution for the obesity problem might be to exercise but that will not fix the problem. You have to go above and beyond for people to be less obese; you might have to encourage people by offering fun exercise classes like rock climbing or getting into another sport. Getting into any sport would be a good thing because the person is getting exercise and getting better at the game, match or tournament that they are playing. Any sport will work, you just have to pick one or you can pick two and become even less obese than other people. There is nothing wrong with exercising; the person exercising should always remember this motto when they are working out “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Katy Perry sang about this motto in her song; Perry may have meant something else from her words but other people use her phrase for exercise motivations! Exercising is good and healthy for you but you also have to have a good diet. One cannot go without the other; in Samoa it is necessary to not only have a healthy diet because you also need to exercise too. 

In the studies of Senthingham, Singh and Gao they all deal with obesity and how it is bad for the human population. All three people have different points in their studies though. As I mentioned before, Sentingham’s main point of view is that Polynesian islands are very obese and that all of the food that islands eat is imported from America. She also points out that people on the island do not get enough exercise. Singh mentions in her studies that her main point of view towards obesity is to warn other countries about the causes of obesity as Samoa deals with the problem by slowly educating their people of the causes. Gao’s main point of view in his study deals with the “wanting” and “liking” of humans at an early age. All three authors want something better for the next generation, which are the children of Samoa and other countries that are high up on the obesity charts. The children need to be taught at an early age how to eat properly and they also need to see what happens if they do not eat right. The teachers in school also need to combine education with exercise; physical education is not enough for the young ones because they have a lot of energy at an early age and if the school system compresses all of their energy into just getting one hour of exercise everyday then those kids will learn at an early age to not want to exercise at all. 

Something we all need to consider is that more and more processed food is being made while more and more people are becoming obese from it. This is not a problem that is just in Samoa, this is a problem that the whole world needs to know about because it could be a deadly epidemic. The little island of Samoa can be a harbinger for other countries because if you can imagine what obesity could do to Samoa then think about what obesity could do to Africa or China. The warning from Samoa can be the loudest shot heard around the world. Obese is making the population grow more and if more people populate the island then there could be an overpopulation with no more food to give. If there is no more food to give, then people are going to rely on canned food from America which could lead to more obese people in this world. The warning message from Samoa is to portion your food and do not eat too much. 
