Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Just booked a trip to Bangkok for Trevor and myself. Although I’ve been there three times before (went to roughly the same places and booked the same hotel), I’ve always liked it there. This is probably also going to be our first non-work related trip outside the country, which is very nice because that means we don’t have to worry about conferences or meetings and can really enjoy being “tourists.”

The mango trees have started blooming - I noticed this some three days ago. I have been going out alone for groceries and such things since Trevor has been down with flu, which started exactly on Christmas Day!

Anyway, going out to the markets and malls, I noticed, especially in the malls, the increase in number of obese people - from age 8 to probably mid or late 20s. I do feel rather alarmed by this. I understand that in many other Asian countries which has adopted a western (American) diet, obesity has also become a problem.

I remember a remark by an Indonesian friend while in Burma some five years ago that there aren’t any obese Buddhists (for example, in Burma or Thailand). Surely it has to do with the diet, and perhaps the meditative practices too.

Anyway, what worried me was the fact that the Philippines has a declining number of nurses and doctors (most of them are going abroad), and within the next 5-15 years there will probably be an enormous demand on the health care system as obesity cases will continue to need medical attention. This will also mean tremendous problems with hospital beds and other facilities fitted for small Asian (or architectural standard) anthropometrics. I don’t ever think how the country will be able to cope with all this! This will also greatly affect the private health insurance systems - imagine an increase in the number of people in their early 20s needing treatment normally given to people in their 60s…

Which reminds me, I took this photo (below) of a billboard I’ve seen in the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, announcing the re-invigoration of the Veterans Golf Club, established in 1958.

The “golf for a cause” campaign says: “every putt you make, every game you play, gives the veteran patient another day.” Which sounds rather morbid to me. While there has been very visible improvements to the golf course (such as new paved pathways, lighting, a giant golf ball marker, etc.), we are yet to see how the hospital is actually benefiting from golf, since last I heard the charter of the golf club has been revised during the term of Mercado (as Defense Secretary), diverting funds of the golf club from the hospital to the pensions of army personnel - something which was the subject of numerous graft and corruption charges in the past few years, one of many issues the Magdalo mutineers hoped to make public and eventually resolve.*

In the meantime, below is a photo of a mushroom I saw under a tree also at the VMMC grounds.

It will be 2008, a new year, soon - hopefully, the health care system doesn’t collapse in a couple years under the weight of current problems. I guess it is important to try and keep healthy on our own, at least by avoiding fast food, if we are still allowed to do so.

* SENATE TO PROBE CORRUPTION IN AFP. Senators will investigate the complaints of mutinous soldiers about alleged corruption and abuse of privileges in the Department of National Defense and the Armed Forces and the “plunder” of the soldiers’ pension funds.

Source: Philippine Star, 28 July 2003

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