It’s now an official sport of the Olympics! (Well, the 2016 Olympics anyway.) Congratulations to the International Rugby Board (IRB) and those involved in convincing the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to have Rugby Sevens (a faster paced 7-a-side version of the 15 player game) in the Olympic Games. [ad#txt_img_skyscraper]“We have already seen massive growth in the popularity of sevens through the world series and Commonwealth Games,” says Gordon Tietjens, coach for the Niu Sila / New Zealand Sevens team. “The pace of the game and having real athletes out there scoring tries - that’s what people want to see; a fast, exciting game.” But some commentators have said the support and contribution of Jonah Lomu was a key figure as rugby persuaded the Olympic movement to include Sevens in their ranks for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. Back in 2003, I remember when I was at uni, and a research company approached a group of us Pacific Islanders to particpate in a focus group session, where we were promised free pizza in exchange for our views. Always keen for a free feed, me and my mates went down to answer the nice lady’s questions. The questions ranged from sports, to politics, to personal values. But one question that did stick out was when we were asked to give our opinion of lakapi / rugby player Jonah Lomu (of Tongan descent). The nice researcher lady was quite taken aback at our reactions. The majoirty of the group (including me) didn’t like the guy at all! For those not familiar with Lomu, he is a former All Black that had the power and ‘Polynesian flair’ that wowed the rugby world. Despite having just two All Black caps, Lomu was included in the squad for the 1995 World Cup in South Africa. Jonah stunned international rugby audiences (and unsuspecting players) at the 1995 World Cup, when he scored seven tries in five matches, including four in the semi-final against England. In his first ever World Cup match, against Ireland in Johannesburg, he scored two tries in the 43–19 win. In the All Blacks’ quarter final, Jonah scored a try in the 48–30 win over Scotland at Loftus Versfeld. He shocked the 51,000 that packed into Newlands in Cape Town to see the semi-final against England, as he notched up four tries in the 45–29 defeat of the English, including a try in which he ran straight through England fullback Mike Catt. The image of Lomu stomping all over Catt helped create the rugby sensation that he became. He is generally regarded as the first true global superstar of rugby union. One of the sport’s most intimidating players on the field, he has had a huge impact on the game. He was inducted to the International Rugby Hall of Fame on 9 October 2007. So why did we not like the guy? Despite being a role model in the rugby world (especially a Polynesian role model), his personal life was littered with examples of how not to be a Polynesian. He has been married and divorced twice and is now living with his third partner, who was herself married when she met Jonah. Nothing to hang the man for, but it was the way he handled these relationships, which, once aired in the media made many Polynesians cringe, and wonder what happened to this South Auckland hero. In 1996, shortly after the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Lomu married South African Tanya Rutter and she moved to live in New Zealand. Four years later in 2000, they were divorced. Then in August 2003, Jonah married his second wife Fiona (who also became his personal manager with a firm hand on all his finances) in a secret ceremony on Waiheke Island. A week later they held a party on the island for approximately 160 guests. Yet it became apparent that Lomu’s mother was not invited to the secret wedding. In December 2007, it was reported that Lomu and his second wife Fiona were taking timeout from one another. Then in February 2008, it was then reported Lomu and his wife Fiona were divorcing. The reason for the divorce was another woman. Nadene Quirk was married to fringe Auckland Blues rugby player Jarek Goebel when she met Jonah in late 2007. Goebel was understandably devastated by what happened. At the time of the focus group, it often felt the trappings of the life of a celebrity, the world fame, the large amounts of money, the women, had all got to Lomu, and he had lost the Polynesian trait of humbleness and respect. Although his later triumphs over sickness and his support for various causes was something to admire, his treatment of his mother at his (second) marriage ceremony never seemed to have left our minds. When I travelled to London, Lomu was still considered a Rugby icon. It seemed as though Lomu was famous everywhere other than here in Niu Sila. In continental Europe, Lomu is immediately associated with Rugby. No doubt his presence in the Olympic bid must have helped. This is probably an unfair piece I have written about Lomu, but it takes a lot more than convincing the IOC to have the Sevens in the Olympics to erase the memory of how he treated his mother. It goes to show, if you disrespect your mother, not even having persuasion over the world amounts to much.
There’s that t-shirt sold at the Otara flea-market that says: “My mum can beat up your dad”. And it’s true! Our Samoan mothers can squash any little person in their way. Polynesians have always been a little bit bigger than most other peoples. Super Samoans! Here in Niu Sila / New Zealand the national au lakapi / rugby team, the All Blacks are dominated by Maori and Pacific Islanders of Polynesian descent. Across the Tasman in Ausetalia / Australia one in four lakapi liki / rugby league players are Polynesian, with 75 per cent of junior representative teams in New South Wales of Polynesian heritage. In Amelika / America, there is a similar story developing in the NFL competition. I would hazard to guess there are less than 2 million Polynesians in a world of over 6 billion, yet why is our physique special enough to excel our people in to national sports teams? Super humans? A product of evolution? [ad#txt_img_skyscraper]There is a theory (also known as the fast twitch muscle fibres theory) that Polynesian people are descendants of those early mariners that crossed the great waters and became the original inhabitants of the South Pacific Islands. In order to survive those long cold oceanic journeys, their Polynesian bodies evolved to develop maximum muscle building capabilities as a means of generating and preserving body temperature. This was a direct adaptation to an environmental factor. Those that could not adapt died, whereas the survivors carried with them genetic advantages, creating a hybrid body of sorts, capable of performing enormous feats of physical labor, on very little calories, and very little water. These early evolutionary patterns form the basis of the contemporary Polynesian body. It enables Polynesian bodies to: 1. Build muscle easily 2. Possess unique strength to mass capabilities 3. Withstand harsh environmental conditions more easily 4. Endure long periods with little food and little water Unfortunately these adaptations also mean Polynesian bodies will: 1. Store excess energy more easily in the form of body fat 2. Store excess water subcutaneously 3. Burn calories at a slower more gradual pace Or so the theory goes. In Niu Sila on Tuesday, the media were running articles on a newly released study showing Niu Sila is the third fattest nation in the developed world. The Health Care Data 2009 report, by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, focused on 30 nations. Of those that reported on weight issues, all showed they were getting fatter. The obesity rate among adults in New Zealand in 2007 was 26.5 per cent. This compared with figures reported the previous year by the United States at 34.3 per cent and Mexico at 30 per cent. The figure compares with a reported 25 per cent obesity rate in New Zealand in 2003 and 18 per cent in 1997. People in Niu Sila have jumped on the band wagon to show the rise in the obesity epidemic. While others use it to point the blame in the 3rd placing at the large Polynesian population here in Niu Sila. While it is true that Polynesians do have obesity related health problems, the figures used when comparing between Polynesians and other ethnic groups need to be qualified. What is often used by these studies to show obesity is the Body Mass Index (BMI). The BMI is a measurement of body weight in relation to a person’s height. A BMI chart tells whether a person is their ideal weight, overweight or obese. But there are also a steady acceptance in the health and scientific communities that Polynesians have a different body mass index to Caucasians. Even the Caucasian BMI have had a few speed bumps, with claims that Brad Pitt would be considered obese and so would all the Palagi’s in the All Blacks team. A senior research fellow at Auckland’s Department of Community Health, Dr Boyd Swinburn says “If Polynesians use the European charts, they’ll be misguided. In the past, the average BMI for Europeans was about 25 to 30, so we assumed there was more obesity in the Polynesian community. We will need to reassess that information using the BMI charts for Polynesians which are relevant to them.” “The preliminary indications are that Polynesians have less body fat than Europeans for a given body size, but they have a higher muscle content which is unusual for people from the tropics,” says Dr Swinburn. His studies also indicated that the bone density for Polynesians is higher than Europeans. This means Polynesians’ bones are heavier and have a calcium level which makes them less prone to osteoporosis and other bone disorders than Europeans. In a later article published in the International Journal of Obesity, Dr Swinburn concluded at higher BMI levels, Polynesians were significantly leaner than Europeans, implying the need for separate BMI definitions of overweight and obesity for Polynesians. “This means that a 100kg Polynesian man will have less fat and more muscle than a 100kg European man. If you put both on a body-building programme, the Polynesian would probably bulk up faster because he has more muscle mass to work with.” That’s not to say that many Polynesians are not obese, but to use the BMI for Caucasians on Polynesians is misrepresented. As Dr Swinburn said “However, if they [a Caucasian and a Polynesian] both ate the same amount of fatty foods over a period of time, the Polynesian would be more likely to develop heart disease, gout and diabetes at a faster rate.” Knowing the types of crap food (mostly the cheap meat from Niu Sila - lamb flaps, corned beef and brisket) our people have become accustomed to, it’s not too hard to see that we have become obese even using our own (BMI) indicators.
