Tiny islands, big appetites
Many people eat high-calorie foods at small, family-run shops for breakfast and again at lunch in this archipelago.
The Mediterranean has long been known for its mix of sun, sea, fish, nuts and olives, a combination considered an elixir of health and fitness. An entire industry has emerged to promote a Mediterranean diet that promises to unlock the secrets of Greek and Italian islanders who stay active into their 100s. Then there is Malta. Throughout the tiny archipelago in the middle of the Mediterranean between Italy and Libya, bulging waistlines are a common sight, spilling over at cafés near the vast battlements from where the islanders’ forebears repelled Ottoman invaders and launched raids on North African ships.
At breakfast, customers line up for pastizzi, diamond-shaped pastries made with butter and lard and stuffed with ricotta-style cheese or mushy peas and often sold at small, family-run shops.
Many return at lunch for timpana pies that are crammed with pasta and meat — and plenty of calories. Candy stores stack their window displays with jumbo packs of chocolates and biscuits, some from Britain, the colonial power here until 1964.
“There’s no doubt obesity is the biggest challenge” for this generation and the next, said Chris Fearne, the parliamentary secretary for health in Malta and a Cabinet member in the Labor government.
Islanders reminisce about homemade soups with potatoes dug from their gardens and about a time when seafood was abundant in their diets.
Godfrey Farrugia, 55, a former health minister and the chairman of a parliamentary working group on diabetes, said fish used to be so common that his mother’s freezer was frequently filled to the brim with fish he caught from the shore during his youth. But a combination of overfishing, pollution, warming waters and industrial fish farming in some bays has disturbed the ecosystem near the shoreline and reduced the local catch, he said.
As a result, fish can be expensive and hard to obtain, as can plant-based staples, most of which are brought in from outside Malta (the Maltese import more than 90 per cent of what they eat).
Americans are still heavier on average than the Maltese, and the populations of some small island states in the South Pacific are heavier still. But in September, a report from the World Health Organization said the Maltese are more obese than their neighbours in Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Italy.
Life expectancy, at 81.9 years, is still longer than the EU average and slightly longer than in Greece. But that is lower than other Mediterranean countries including Italy, Spain and Cyprus, and longevity on Malta could eventually decline as more islanders contract obesity-related diseases at younger ages and die earlier, said Josanne Vassallo, an endocrinologist at the University of Malta Medical School.
The government is trying to combat the crisis with steps like encouraging mothers to breastfeed, a practice shown in some studies to reduce obesity later in life.
The government has also slapped restrictions on sugary drinks and fatty foods in schools, and it has obliged schools to measure the body mass index, which gauges fatness, of all children ages 3 to 16.