By Claudia Gardner:
In early 2019, general, laparoscopic and weight-loss surgeon, Dr Alfred Dawes, who was then Senior Medical Officer at the Savanna-la-mar Hospital announced, to howls of laughter from his audience seated in the Lucea Parish Church Hall, that Hanover had “the fattest men in Jamaica.’’
This, was in stark contrast to the men in neighbouring Westmoreland which has the most slender men, not only in Jamaica, but in the world.
Of course, the men in Hanover, having gotten wind that they had earned this dubious title, stubbornly complained that there was no way that they could be deemed to be on the heavy side of the scale.
On social media, there was a lot of jeering, particularly on Instagram where, in responding to a Gleaner article which was carried two days later, readers teasingly accused the women of Hanover of overfeeding their men and contributing to them being Jamaica’s tubbiest.
Dr. Dawes’ announcement had been made at a forum on Obesity and other Non-Communicable Diseases, which was staged by the Ministry of Health and Wellness.
In an article which he titled The Chubby Awards, which was published in the Sunday Gleaner on January 30, 2019, prior to the Lucea event, Dr. Dawes had noted that the Jamaica Health and Lifestyle Survey had reported that more than half of Jamaicans were overweight or obese and almost one out of every three Jamaicans was obese.
He said that although 54 per cent of Jamaicans are over their expected weight, “it is a whopping 67 per cent of women who are overweight or obese”.
“Compared to the women, Jamaican men are some of the slimmest in the world. Only 15 per cent of Jamaican men are obese,” he noted.
“The parish with the most obese men, surprisingly, goes to Hanover, at 23 per cent, edging out St Catherine, with 22 per cent. St Ann closely follows, with 19.5 per cent,” Dr. Dawes had revealed.
He added: “This result must again have the judges at the Ministry of Health scratching their heads as to how one of the less-developed parishes was able to win this award without heavyweights such as Kingston and St James not even making the top three”.
The Mawga Man Award, as he termed it, went to Westmoreland, which, with only two percent of its population of men being obese, were the ‘mawgaest’ in the world, followed by Portland at 4.2 per cent and St Thomas at number three with 7.6 per cent.
“Not even Japan, with 3.2 per cent, can top them (Westmorelites),” Dr. Dawes said.
Two years on, Negril Times sought to find out what are the factors which have led the men of Hanover to be under the goodly doctor’s radar.
Answers were sought from the men themselves to the two main questions which Dr. Dawes said were baffling him.
One: “Why is it that two adjoining parishes with a similar history and geography have the fattest and the slimmest men in Jamaica?
Two: “What are Westmoreland men doing so well that no other Jamaicans are doing?”
Leonard Sharpe, a contractor from Hanover, told Negril Times that the difference between the men in the two parishes stemmed from alcohol consumption habits.
“Westmoreland man feed pon rum; dem drink whole heap a rum and eat less food. Look pan di man dem weh drink rum. Di rum cut dem appetite. Dem nuh have no appetite fi eat no food, suh dem always maaga and look like dem caan move demself,” Sharpe said of the men from the westernmost parish.
For the men in Hanover, he narrowed it down to “late eating”, “poor digestion” and “beer drinking”.
“Is only now inna Hanover yuh si some young yute a drink rum and Boom. First time yuh mighta si an ole man drink some rum. Dem mostly drink beer and beer meck some a dem belly big and all dem way deh,” he said.
“Di type a junk food weh some people eat enuh; eat late an all dem suppm deh. Dem nuh gi demself no time fi di food digest properly… some a dem outa road a drink beer and a eat chicken and den dem gone a dem bed gone sleep. Dem nuh have no time fi di food digest… an di heap a ice water dem a drink,” Sharpe added.
Sharpe’s observation might not be too far off, based on research that have been conducted globally.
According to the New Zealand drug foundation in its publication Matters of Substance publication titled Mythbusters: Does alcohol make you fat?, alcohol is a known appetite stimulant, and people tend to eat more when consuming alcohol.
Conversely, it said that theoretically, while the potential for alcohol to increase weight is clear, “the evidence is surprisingly mixed”.
“Some studies suggest calories from alcohol are more likely to cause weight gain in intermittent drinkers and in those already overweight than in heavy drinkers (the classic malnourished alcoholic). Others find alcohol is associated with weight loss in certain subjects,” the report noted.
Charles S. Lieber, a New York physician who had been studying alcohol use from 1957, in a study titled Perspectives: Do Alcohol Calories Count? had come up with a “biochemical mechanism” which he said largely accounts for the remarkable wastage of alcohol calories in heavy drinkers.
In his findings which were published in the Journal of the American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Lieber said that for moderate social drinkers who might have a cocktails before dinner or an occasional glass of wine or a beer, alcohol calories can indeed add up, but “chronic heavy drinking can prime certain metabolic processes and, in effect, train the body to waste the seven calories a gram that alcohol ordinarily provides”.
It is a notion seconded by Athletics coach Kerron Grant, who hails from Askenish in Hanover and coaches athletics at Vere Technical.
Grant, a graduate of the GC Foster College of Physical Education and Sport said that inactivity, the result of high unemployment in Hanover, plus a lack of sporting activities and the morbid alcohol-sugary drink combination have had a stranglehold on many of the men in the parish.
“Many men in Hanover are very dormant for the most part. Most are not working and are not going out on a daily basis, so they stay on the corner. Secondly, many consume a lot of alcohol as well. So those may be contributing factors,” Grant, a Rusea’s High School graduate said.
Their Westmoreland compatriots, he said, tend to be more active, in a parish which historically, has the distinction of having the most bicycle riders in Jamaica including men, women and children of all ages.
“Bicycle riding burns a lot of calories, so basically it assists with fat burning. In terms of alcohol- alcohol mixed with the sweet, the Boom and the special, those drinks result in a lot of sugar being in the stomach and that accumulates a lot of fat, very easy and fast,” Grant said.
