Gordon | Ōtara

“I see it probably every day. I work for a company called Jetts, but my business is basically just health and fitness, but a lot of people out here come from different ethnicity groups, different cultures, different religions, different food types they like to eat, but not everybody likes to follow the path of health and wellbeing.

Sometimes in Ōtara, if you actually think about it, it’s pretty much the financial foods. If we look at the likes of milk, milk charge is pretty much $4 more than a bottle or can of coke. I see a lot of families in the south-side, saying that they struggle, but the easiest food process for them is pretty much the bakeries or the liquor stores you see around, because you’ve got about three or four of them in your community, but you don’t have doctors or enough resources for people to help. So, in my experience, it’s basically that they need to get more doctors out here or more healthy choices, because what you see out here is pretty much what you get. 

I guess for myself, in the experience of personal training as well, people from different ethnicity groups, you can’t actually judge them. They all come from different places, different sources of income, different choices. Some people are either born here, or migrated here. Some people don’t have the choices and the resources in what they have. Some places, like out on the North Shore probably have better resources. That’s what I’ve experienced out here in the South side, that you can change something from a piece of almonds to cashews, or peanuts that maybe cost $1 cheaper, but these people around here can’t afford it. Maybe you can’t afford the Vogel bread that’s $3.50, but there are wheat-meal breads that are about $1.50. So, I guess that’s what I’ve experienced in my job around here, to help people in my community.

Coming from a Pacific family, we like to eat. We love to eat. We feed our Pacific people in a way that’s not a bad thing, but we feed our next generation in a way that we love them, but not having the knowledge or the nutrition to know that too much heavy food is bad for the kid. For me, that’s the drive that I have, that if I can break the cycle in the Pacific community out here, that having a little bit of it won’t kill you, but not having a lot of it will prevent diabetes, prevent you from Type 2, pretty much prevent you from high sugar levels. Just getting out there, being a little bit active, or even just having a walk can change your lifestyle, and that’s my drive and what I like to do out here in the community.”