Macau Matters | Toxic lifestyles

Richard Whitfield

I believe that most people now accept that modern Western diets heavy in protein, sugar and salt combined with sedentary living behaviours are highly toxic, leading to obesity, heart problems, diabetes and a host of other health problems. Moreover, the primary “drug pushers” in this scenario are international companies mass producing unhealthy foods and beverages, along with machines that do most physical work and let people move around while sitting down. It may sound a bit “commie” but I get very annoyed with people and companies who make large profits while creating substantial social and environmental problems that the whole community has to pay to clean up. I heartily agree with calls for high punitive taxes on sugar and salt rich foods and beverages so that there are funds to use to clean up the problems they cause – we already do the same thing for alcohol and tobacco in many places.
It is also quite clear that the solution to these problems is encouraging people to eat healthily and to regularly exercise, and especially to walk and play sports.
Eating healthily largely means balancing meat and vegetable consumption and drastically reducing sugar and salt consumption. Given that sugar and salt are so addictive, communities should regulate their use, in addition to advising people to develop good eating habits. I believe that schools have a heavy responsibility in this regard – the habits we develop as children (both good and bad) are the ones that we carry over into adulthood. I am always very disappointed when I visit schools in Macau and see vending machines full of “junk food” and very unhealthy school lunches. Why aren’t teachers and school administrators held to account?
Encouraging people to exercise is largely a problem of urban planning and priorities. The modern trend is to stop designing our cities to suit motor vehicles and design them for people instead – there is a wealth of information on making cities more liveable and walkable. Neighbourhoods need to be mixed use and contain residential, commercial, social and other spaces within easy walking distances, so that people rarely need to get in a vehicle, and have plenty of walkable destinations that they want to visit. The community also needs to put a much higher priority on sports and healthy living.
In Macau, I have been complaining for years about the lack of regular school sports competitions – every school kid should play a sport, and practice and play every week. I honestly do not know what the Sports Development Board in Macau does, but it certainly does not effectively encourage local amateur sports. It seems to be entirely focused on dragon boat races that only happen once a year, and keeping its inventory of sports facilities largely empty of people and in disrepair. An excellent example is the recent report where the Macau government has created a Taipa Waterfront Cycle track, which is an excellent initiative, but then cannot keep the inventory of rental bikes there in working order. We deserve better from our very well paid civil servants.
I also believe that perhaps 30% of the roads in Macau should be pedestrianized and largely closed to all vehicles (perhaps with the exception of some delivery vehicles, but only during very restricted times). This freed up space can then be properly landscaped to make spaces where people want to walk and sit and talk and do other things. If the current situation is anything to go by, we seem to have urban mis-planning in Macau, which is totally unacceptable for such a compact and densely populated city. Again, we deserve much better than we currently get.