Modernization, nutritional adaptability and health in Papua New Guinea Highlanders and Solomon Islanders

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511542510.006

6 - Modernization, nutritional adaptability and health in Papua New Guinea Highlanders and Solomon Islanders

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2009

Taro Yamauchi

Edited by

Ryutaro Ohtsuka and

Stanley J. Ulijaszek

Show author details

Taro Yamauchi: Affiliation:
Department of Human Ecology, School of International Health, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Ryutaro Ohtsuka: Affiliation:
University of Tokyo
Stanley J. Ulijaszek: Affiliation:
University of Oxford

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Introduction

Economic modernization is global in outreach, and the countries in the South Pacific are not exempt. The Melanesian populations of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands are experiencing increasing involvement in the cash economy, and associated changes in diet, which now includes more purchased foods. Modernization and urbanization have also led to sedentary lifestyles, due to increased mechanization of work and a shift from subsistence activities (including traditional agriculture, fishing, hunting and gathering) to paid jobs. Dietary changes, such as increases in fat and sugar intakes and decreased fibre intake, together with reduced physical activity, have contributed to the increasing prevalence of obesity and degenerative diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Melanesians are broadly divided into two language groups – Austronesian (AN) and non-Austronesian (NAN). The AN-language speakers within PNG are part of a much larger AN-language family, which stretches from South East Asia to Hawaii and from Micronesia to New Zealand (Foley 1992). By contrast, NAN-language speakers are found predominantly on the mainland of PNG and have a much longer history than AN-language speakers (Foley 1992). It has been argued that the two groups differ genetically, this being reflected in their differing susceptibilities to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases (being less prevalent in NAN- than in AN-language speakers) (King 1992; Hodge et al. 1996).

Type: Chapter
Information: Health Change in the Asia-Pacific Region , pp. 101 - 126

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511542510.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allen, B. J., Bourke, R. M. and Hide, R. L. (1995). The sustainability of Papua New Guinea agricultural systems: the conceptual background. Global Environmental Change 5, 297–312.CrossRef Google Scholar

Ballard, C. (1995). The death of a great land: ritual, history and subsistence revolution in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University.

Clarke, W. C. (1971). Place and People: An Ecology of a New Guinean Community. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar

Cordain, L., Gotshall, R. W. and Eaton, S. B. (1998). Physical activity, energy expenditure and fitness: an evolutionary perspective. International Journal of Sports Medicine 19, 328–35.CrossRef Google Scholar

Dignan, C. A., Burlingame, B. A., Arthur, J. M., et al. (1994). The Pacific Islands Food Composition Tables. Palmerston North: South Pacific Commission.Google Scholar

Dowse, G. K., Spark, R. A., Mavo, B., et al. (1994). Extraordinary prevalence of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and bimodal plasma glucose distribution in the Wanigela people of Papua New Guinea. Medical Journal of Australia 160, 767–74.Google Scholar PubMed

Durnin, J. V. G. A. and Womersley, J. (1974). Body fat assessed from total body density and its estimation from skinfold thickness: measurements on 481 men and women aged from 16 to 72 years. British Journal of Nutrition 32, 77–97.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Eason, R. J., Pada, J., Wallace, R., Henry, A. and Thornton, R. (1987). Changing patterns of hypertension, diabetes, obesity and diet among Melanesians and Micronesians in the Solomon Islands. Medical Journal of Australia 146, 465–73.Google Scholar PubMed

FAO/WHO/UNU (1985). Energy and Protein Requirements. WHO Technical Report Series 724, Geneva: World Health Organization.

Ferro-Luzzi, A. and Martino, L. (1996). Obesity and physical activity. In The Origins and Consequences of Obesity, ed. Chadwick, D. J.. Ciba Foundation Symposium 201. Chichester: Wiley, pp. 207–27.Google Scholar

Foley, W. A. (1992). Language and identity in Papua New Guinea. In Human Biology in Papua New Guinea: The Small Cosmos, ed. Attenborough, R. D. and Alpers, M. P.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 136–49.Google Scholar

Glasse, R. M. (1968). Huli of Papua: A Cognatic Descent System. Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar

Goldberg, G. R., Prentice, A. M., Davies, H. L. and Murgatroyd, P. R. (1988). Overnight and basal metabolic rates in men and women. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 42, 137–44.Google Scholar PubMed

Grossman, L. S. (1984). Peasant, Subsistence Ecology, and Development in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Hattori, K., Tatsumi, N. and Tanaka, S. (1997). Assessment of body composition by using a new chart method. American Journal of Human Biology 9, 573–8.3.0.CO;2-V>CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Hide, R. (1981). Aspects of pig production and use in colonial Sinasina, Papua New Guinea. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University.

Hodge, A. M., Montgomery, J., Dowse, G. K., et al. (1996). Diet in an urban Papua New Guinea population with high levels of cardiovascular risk factors. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 35, 311–24.CrossRef Google Scholar

Hongo, T. and Ohtsuka, R. (1993). Nutrient compositions of Papua New Guinea foods. Man and Culture in Oceania 9, 103–25.Google Scholar

Inaoka, T., Ohtsuka, R., Kawabe, T., Hongo, T. and Suzuki, T. (1996). Emergence of degenerative diseases in Papua New Guinea islanders. Environmental Sciences 4, S79–S93.Google Scholar

James, W. P. T. and Schofield, E. C. (1990). Human Energy Requirements: A Manual for Planners and Nutritionists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

King, H. (1992). The epidemiology of diabetes mellitus in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific: adverse consequences of natural selection in the face of sociocultural change. In Human Biology in Papua New Guinea: The Small Cosmos, ed. Attenborough, R. D. and Alpers, M. P.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 363–72.Google Scholar

Kuchikura, Y. (1999). The cost of diet in a Huli community of Papua New Guinea: a linear programming analysis of subsistence and cash-earning strategies. Man and Culture in Oceania 15, 65–90.Google Scholar

Leonard, W. R. (2003). Measuring human energy expenditure: what have we learned from the flex-heart rate method?American Journal of Human Biology 15, 479–89.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Leonard, W. R. and Robertson, M. L. (1992). Nutritional requirements and human evolution: a bioenergetics model. American Journal of Human Biology 4, 179–95.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Modjeska, N. (1982). Production and inequality: perspectives from central New Guinea. In Inequality in New Guinea Highlands Societies, ed. Strathern, A.. Cambridge University Press, pp. 50–108.Google Scholar

Natsuhara, K., Inaoka, T., Umezaki, M., et al. (2000). Cardiovascular risk factors of migrants in Port Moresby from the highlands and island villages, Papua New Guinea. American Journal of Human Biology 12, 655–64.3.0.CO;2-X>CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Norgan, N. G., Ferro-Luzzi, A. and Durnin, J. V. G. A. (1974). The energy and nutrient intake and the energy expenditure of 204 New Guinea adults. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 268, 309–48.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Ohtsuka, R., Sudo, N., Sekiyama, M., et al. (2004). Gender difference in daily time and space use among Bangladeshi villagers under arsenic hazard: application of the compact spot-check method. Journal of Biosocial Science 36, 317–32.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Sexton, L. (1986). Mothers of Money, Daughters of Coffee: The Wok Meri Movement. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press.Google Scholar

Sillitoe, P. (1983). Roots of the Earth: Crops in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Kensington: New South Wales University Press.Google Scholar

Sillitoe, P.(2002). After the ‘affluent society’: cost of living in the Papua New Guinea highlands according to time and energy expenditure-income. Journal of Biosocial Science 34, 433–61.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Siri, W. E. (1956). The gross composition of the body. Advances in Biological and Medical Physics 4, 239–80.CrossRef Google Scholar

Spurr, G. B., Prentice, A. M., Murgatroyd, P. R., et al. (1988). Energy expenditure from minute-by-minute heart-rate recording: comparison with indirect calorimetry. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 48, 552–9.CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Strathern, A. (1982). Inequality in Highlands Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Ulijaszek, S. J. (1995). Human Energetics in Biological Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Umezaki, M., Yamauchi, T. and Ohtsuka, R. (1999). Diet among the Huli in Papua New Guinea Highlands when they were influenced by the extended rainy period. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 37, 409–27.CrossRef Google Scholar

Umezaki, M., Yamauchi, T. and Ohtsuka, R.(2002). Time allocation to subsistence activities among the Huli in rural and urban Papua New Guinea. Journal of Biosocial Science 34, 133–7.Google Scholar PubMed

Umezaki, M., Kuchikura, Y., Yamauchi, T. and Ohtsuka, R. (2000). Impact of population pressure on food production: an analysis of land use change and subsistence pattern in the Tari basin in Papua New Guinea Highlands. Human Ecology 28, 359–81.CrossRef Google Scholar

Itallie, T. B., Yang, M., Heymsfield, S. B., Funk, R. C. and Boileau, R. A. (1990). Height-normalized indices of the body's fat-free mass and fat mass: potentially useful indicators of nutritional status. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 52, 953–9.Google Scholar

Waddell, E. (1972). The Mound Builders: Agricultural Practices, Environment, and Society in the Central Highlands of New Guinea. Seattle: Washington University Press.Google Scholar

Weiner, J. S. and Lourie, J. A. (1981). Practical Human Biology. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar

Wohlt, P. B. (1978). Ecology, agriculture and social organization: the dynamics of group composition in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota.

World Health Organization (1985). Diabetes Mellitus: Report of a WHO Study Group. Technical Report Series 727. Geneva: World Health Organization.

World Health Organization(2000). Obesity: Preventing and Managing the Global Epidemic. WHO Technical Report Series 894, Geneva: World Health Organization.

Wood, A. W. (1985). The Stability and Permanence of Huli Agriculture. Occasional paper no. 5. new series. Port Moresby: Department of Geography, University of Papua New Guinea.

Yamauchi, T. (2002). Development and basic human needs in the local villages of Western Province, the Solomon Islands: impact of commercial logging on nutrition and health. Environment, Development and Culture in Asia-Pacific Societies 4, 10–26 (in Japanese).Google Scholar

Yamauchi, T. and Ohtsuka, R. (2000). Basal metabolic rate and energy costs at rest and during exercise in rural- and urban dwelling Papua New Guinea Highlanders. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 54, 494–9.CrossRef Google Scholar

Yamauchi, T., Umezaki, M. and Ohtsuka, R. (2000). Energy expenditure, physical exertion and time allocation among Huli-speaking people in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. Annals of Human Biology 27, 571–85.Google Scholar PubMed

Yamauchi, T., Umezaki, M. and Ohtsuka, R.(2001a). Influence of urbanisation on physical activity and dietary changes in Huli-speaking population: a comparative study of village dwellers and migrants in urban settlements. British Journal of Nutrition 85, 65–73.CrossRef Google Scholar

Yamauchi, T., Umezaki, M. and Ohtsuka, R.(2001b). Physical activity and subsistence pattern of the Huli, a Papua New Guinea highland population. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 114, 258–68.3.0.CO;2-Y>CrossRef Google Scholar