Informal Session: Obesity and Health in the Pacific
Organizers: Aunchalee Palmquist and Nancy Pollock

We deeply regretted Aunchalee’s absence at the last minute due to family sickness, but she came in clearly and participated fully through Skype, as did Sue Wurtzburg from Hawai‘i. Unfortunately Jessica could not get through from American Samoa but we had her paper as she expected difficulties. Thus we had 7 great papers, and three participants in the room. Chelsea was most helpful in managing all the technology and keeping Aunchalee and Sue on screen to add their comments on the papers. The papers addressed the social contexts of obesity as cultural consonance, while discussing bio-medical or cultural-biological or ecological models in an obesogenic environment. Experiences of obesity through stages in the life course (Aunchalee) were addressed by each of the participants, covering both under and over-nutrition with developmental implications (Chelsea). Ashleigh’s paper addressed the phenomenon of siksuka in Vanuatu, while Tom’s paper looked at obesity for Solomon Island soccer players, and Susan’s contribution addressed tradition and modernity in relation to body images in Hawaiian Pacific island communities. Nancy’s paper brought the discussion to Obesity as a ‘pandemic’ today, and how best to manage interventions, particularly amongst student populations, in both northern and southern Pacific communities.

Aunchalee Palmquist, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Elon University, Elon, NC, USA; apalmquist@elon.edu

Nancy Pollock, Depts of Anthropology and Development Studies (retired), Victoria University of Wellington, NEW ZEALAND; nancy_pollock@paradise.net.nz