Call to raise awareness of obesity, diabetes among Hong Kong’s South Asian ethnic minorities, but cultural sensitivity urged
- Efforts to encourage change must recognise food preferences and different attitudes towards exercise in public, experts urge
- Minority groups miss out on health messaging as city’s public drives target majority in population
Hong Kong experts who found higher levels of obesity and related health problems among the city’s South Asian ethnic minority groups have called for targeted, culturally sensitive action to help them.
Former health minister Professor Yeoh Eng-kiong, who led the Chinese University study, suggested “slightly different” approaches to improve the health of ethnic minority group members, especially those from disadvantaged and poorer backgrounds.
He noted that much of the health information and advice put out by the government, the media and the medical sector catered to most of the population.
The issue was not only the language used, but also the cultural sensitivity of the messages, said Yeoh, director of the university’s Centre for Health Systems and Policy Research.
He said ethnic minority group members had different food and lifestyle preferences, and efforts to encourage them to make the healthiest choices had to take that into account.
For example, it would be pointless to advise people to eat a healthier type of rice when they ate some other staple food, he said.
“You ask me to eat rice three times a day, and multigrain rice, when I don’t eat rice,” he argued. “Obviously I’m just disengaged. I don’t even bother to look at it any more.”
