Controversial health educator transforms lives

Controversial health educator transforms lives -Challenges national nutritional guidelines

Six months ago nutritionist Ben Warren was approached by former All Black captain Taine Randall to help members of Flaxmere’s Te Aranga Marae combat life - threatening health issues including diabetes and heart disease.

“Taine and his wife Jo had been on my programme and they wanted to share what they had learned with others,” Mr Warren said.

Ben Warren’s programme challenges national nutrition guidelines – but the positive results from the pilot programme in Hawke’s Bay are allowing those guidelines to be questioned.

For the past 10 weeks health coach Ben Warren has been working with 27 men and women from Te Aranga Marae who have been battling with weight, high blood sugar and cholesterol levels and there have been some eye-opening results.

The 27 participants have lost an average of 8.7 kilograms with one losing a staggering 20 kilos in ten weeks.

Mr Warren said together with the considerable weight loss, the most significant results were the lowering of blood sugar levels, with at-risk participants moving from a type 2 diabetes danger zone to a much safer zone.

“Diabetes is at epidemic proportions in New Zealand and the figures are particularly concerning for Maori, with one in five Maori having type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes.”

In New Zealand diabetes causes 50 per cent of heart attacks, 33 per cent of strokes, 50 per cent of kidney failure, 50 per cent of blindness and 50 per cent of amputations.

All the participants had been affected in some way by diabetes or heart disease and all spoke of their overwhelming desire to see Maori given advice that would work for them specifically.

Mr Warren said, that to be really effective, health programmes need to take in the genetic needs of individuals and he questions the current “healthy food plates” being recommended by organizations like the Diabetes Society.

“The advice being handed out is that it’s okay to eat plenty of grains and carbohydrates but I would challenge this.

“The refined grains can be really difficult for Maori to process.”

The pilot programme has amazed the participants with many believing a strict diet would be involved.

However Mr Warren insisted that the programme emphasized the importance of lifestyle changes rather than strict diets.

“There is no talk of portion control on the programme, in fact we encouraged a lot of eating with plenty of meat, fish and vegetables – but very little bread.”

Mr Warren said the programme proved to Maori that eating traditional foods, like boil-up and hangi were good for them.

“Maori have been led to believe that fat and meat are bad for their health, but I don’t believe that to be true and we’ve got the results to prove it.”

Mr Warren is keen to take the programme to others at risk but he said it would require government funding.

“We’ve offered the Flaxmere programme without funding because we needed to be able to prove its effectiveness and we have done that.”

Mr Warren has a goal to make 1 million New Zealanders healthy in five years and he’s on track to do it.

“My seminars around the country are attracting people from all walks of life and all ethnic backgrounds.”

Mr Warren said he was keen to take his health programme to new levels with a possible television series in the pipeline and the chance for people to get healthy online through his website.

Case Study - Hirini Price

The rugby player and father of a young family says he hadn’t played sport for ten years before signing up to Ben Warren’s programme.

“I weighed 183 kilograms before I met Ben and I couldn’t tie my shoe laces, now I feel totally different and I’ve lost 18 kilo’s.

“I wanted to do this for my family – I want to be there for them.”

Mr Price said his extended whanau were keen to find out more about the programme and how it could also help their health.

He said Mr Warren had bought hope to his community and the very real chance for them to be healthy.

ENDS

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