Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 5, Number 12, 1 December 1988 — ʻAi Pono, E Ola [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ʻAi Pono, E Ola

By Terry Shintani, M.D.

Sharing The Moloka'i Diet

A little over a month ago, an important prineiple that could hold a key to increasing the lifespan of the Hawaiian people was demonstrated. At that time, the Wai'anae coast was fortunate to be visited by the people of Moloka'i who created and participated in

the Moloka'i Diet Study whieh has been described by kauka Kekuni Blaisdell in recent articles in this paper. The study was done by an organization known as Na Pu'uwai. They shared the startling results of their study with the people of the Wai'anae coast community. Kauka Noa Emmett Aluli, co-investigator, Helen Kanawaliwali 0'Connor, coordinator, and participants Esther Keohuloa and Wilamette Neuhart gave a presentation about the study on October 14 at the Wai'anae Library. Claire Hughes, native Hawaiian nutritionist with the Department of Health and kauka Helen Petrovitch, consultants on this project were also present. In the audience were numerous community members and leaders from both the Nanakuli homestead and the Wai'anae homestead as well as people from the general Wai'anae coast eommunity. There was a great deal of interest and excitement stimulated by this presentation. Kauka Aluli and Helen 0'Connor explained that 10 native Hawaiians were placed on an ancient Hawaiian diet in this study. After just three weeks on this diet, all of them showed evidence of a decrease in their risk of heart disease. In addition, the participants reported increased energy and sense of well being.

But besides demonstrating that the ancient Hawaiian diet is very healthy, this event provides an important lesson to all of us about a different but equally important aspect of diet. It is a lesson that holds one of the keys to reversing the high rates of death from diet-related causes among all the Hawaiian people. The lesson is that diet is more than just nutrients. Diet is culture and tradition and is meant to be shared.

. .Diet is more than just nutrients. Diet is culture and tradition and is meant to be shared."

In the first of this series of articles, I described the four principles of the Malama Ola preventive health program at the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center. I believe that if any of you would practice these principles, you would help increase the lifespan of the Hawaiian population. This would occur because not only would you increase your own life span, but you would also increase the lifespan of others whom you may influence. These principles are as follows: 1. Eat right 2. Have a positive attitude 3. Exercise 4. Share This fourth principle, "share" is what is demonstrated by the 'E Ai Maika'i food fair. It is an excellent example of Hawaiians sharing with Hawaiians and a community sharing with other communities. As a result of this sharing, a number of individuals are now interested in making dfetary changes. One young man rn the audience wanted to know what were the plans to spread this to all the Hawaiian people. Results such as these demonstrate how one person's sharing ean have an impact on many

other people's lives. If one person has an impact on just ten others, and those ten had an impact on ten more people eaeh and so forth, it wouldn't be long before 180,000 people or the entire native Hawaiian populahon was influenced in a positive way. Finally, sharing is important because not only does it help others, it actually is healthy for the person doing the sharing. Recent studies show that a person who helps another has a measurable increase in white blood eell count whieh could help increase a person's resistance to certain diseases. Sharing ean be fun as was demonstrated by this gracious visit by the people of Moloka'i. Sharing ean also help restore the health of the Hawaiian people by encouraging positive dietary change. The people of the Wai'anae coast send their Aloha to the people of Moloka'i for taking the time to share the lessons of the Moloka'i Diet Study, and the people of Hawai'i will thank eaeh one of you who takes these lessons to heart and shares them with your Hawaiian brothers and sisters. If you, the reader, would like to share something right now, you ean share your mana'o with everyone else by helping to find more information about ancient Hawaiian diets. Claire Hughes would like to hear what your kupuna have to say about what their grandparents used to eat. It would be very helpful to better understand what the ancient Hawaiians used to eat. If at all possible, we would like to request that anyone who is native Hawaiian and over 60 years old please share with us by letter what your Hawaiian grandparents used to eat. If you have any friends or relatives who fit that description please ask them to do the same. Any details will be helpful. You ean send this information to my attention or to the attention of Claire Hughes care of this newspaper.