Multicultural Health Week 2014, an initiative of the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service, an annual themed program that discusses health issues and initiatives prevalent in multicultural societies, attempts to hone in its 2014 edition next week on such issues as healthy eating, smoking and increased exercise.

Peter Todaro, the director of the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service, speaking to Neos Kosmos said that this year’s program was taking from mainstream health, nutrition, diet, exercise, smoking and being healthy, and associating those factors with multicultural communities. He said the organisation has launched a website and community initiatives across NSW, through hospitals, community health centres and non-government organisations.

Todaro said that whilst it is difficult to pinpoint a correlation between the three targeted themes and multicultural (or ethnic) communities, they are elements that are ubiquitous within non-Anglo factions.

“We certainly do know that in some multicultural groups smoking levels are very high, they’re double the general population, in others they’re lower than the general population.

“We also know that cardiovascular disease is higher in some groups, and some groups die less healthy than others. But I guess generally it affects us all. Food and exercise are generally something the human body requires, we’re all affected by that.”

Multicultural Health Week 2014 is a means of promoting a healthy living workplace (and at home). According to the Health & Productivity Institute of Australia (HAPIA), organisations that don’t promote health and wellness are four times more likely to lose employees within 12 months. Therefore, the week long initiative aims at inspiring dialogue and awareness to groups that would otherwise not have support measures in place to seek medical or health assistance.

“I think if people see the information it encourages them to become active and pick up the phone. It’s really easy for people to say ‘I’ll ring tomorrow’ or ‘I’m OK, I’m not going to worry about that’, but maybe pick up the phone and get some more information. Once you’ve gotten information if you don’t want to do anything about it, then that’s fine, but at least you’re informed.”

The organisation has previously worked with the Greek community, especially in relation to smoking, but Todaro believes there is still a lot of work to be done addressing other issues.

“I think generally, if you look at the Greek community they’re more of an older established community. So I think some of the issues around those communities are around ageing, dementia, being taken care of at home … around those areas,” he said. “There are a lot of Greek people that do take care of themselves, they have quit smoking, they do get involved in walking groups.”

One of the grounds relating to the health issues plaguing multicultural societies, the Greek community included, is culture.

“If people cut down smoking or stop and go and see their GPs on how to do that, that would be great. And if people generally start eating more vegetables and fruit that would be terrific.”

“I think it’s part of the reason, how we grow up, and when someone grows up, in an Italian family for example, with pasta twice a day and then perhaps a protein dish like meat and then you say to them ‘look you have to eat vegetables, three vegetables and you have to cut down on your bread and your pasta’, they look at you and say ‘what, what are you talking about?! I’ve been eating this all my life’.

“So for us it’s about explaining that certain foods are high in carbohydrates and they’re the foods that put you at risk, and for an Italian or a Greek person you tell them the foods they’ve had all their lives put them at risk, it’s a difficult issue. Culture is mostly associated with food and it’s really hard to change the cultural habits you’ve had all your life.”

But Todaro argues that culture does not have to be foreshadowed for the sake of new healthy eating measures. A good balance can be achieved between enjoying the cultural aspects of diet as well as healthy eating and living.

He said that any change, no matter how minor, was a positive step and could put years on one’s life.

For further information on Multicultural Health Week 2014 visit www.multiculturalhealthweek.com