Search

The accelerated phase of industrialisation and urbanisation in recent decades has inevitably brought about changes in the lifestyle of Malaysians. Changes in dietary habits and sedentary lifestyles are known to be associated with changes in health and increased prevalence of chronic diseases in the population. The objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the link between demographic variables and food consumption patterns related to the nutrition transition in Malaysia. This review uses various reports and publications from several ministries and selected local studies. The statistics compiled over the last two decades have shown that as the population achieves affluence, intakes of calories, fats and sugars increase, which may account for the substantial increase in food importation bills over the same period. Similarly, the rapid growth of the fast food industry during the last decade has added another dimension to the change in food consumption patterns of Malaysians. With the exception of a study on adolescents, the prevalences of overweight and obesity in children and adults are not strictly comparable due to the difference in body mass index (BMI) cut-off points in children and the study protocol in adults, and hence should not be misinterpreted as trends. The recent recommendation to lower the BMI cut-off points for Asians would only increase the magnitude of the existing prevalence among adults. The need to promote healthy nutrition for the population must be pursued vigorously, as the escalation of nutrition-related chronic degenerative diseases - once an urban phenomenon--has now spread to the rural population at an alarming rate. This paper indicates that the problem is real and needs urgent attention because it may be just the tip of the iceberg.

Theories about state-led Islamisation tend to attribute the phenomenon to domestic dynamics, such as political competition, institutional co-optation, and changing social norms. When exogenous factors are considered, they usually refer to imported ideologies. Moreover, Islamisation is often depicted as a firm rejection of the West. This article seeks to complicate those explanations. Using insights from the ontological security literature in International Relations, I argue that Malaysia's state-led Islamisation cannot be understood comprehensively without looking at macro-historical factors, particularly Malaysia's postcoloniality and its elites' perception of the global order. Instead of being a manifestation of anti-West sentiments, I argue that the initial receptivity towards Islamisation by Malaysia's largely secular ethnonationalist elites constitutes a quest for recognition within an international order within which the Muslim identity is racialised and stigmatised. This is most obvious in Mahathir Mohamad's ideas on Islam, in that his calling for a developmentalist Islam has as its (imagined) respondent the stigmatising 'West'. I argue that the forms of Islamisation undertaken during the Mahathir administration reflected this drive to catch up with the West while simultaneously securing recognition for Islam; and that such a leitmotif persisted even into the post-September 11, post-Barisan Nasional world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the ethnography of the two separate orang asli tribal communities of the Meniq in Southern Thailand and the Orang Sakai in Riau, Indonesia. Emphasis is given to discursive rhetorics of development and the development of modern cultural discourses within the two countries. It is suggested that theses rhetorics of development define indigenous groups as lacking in culture and devalue their traditional way of life. Other topics include the resettlement of indigenous peoples, cultural movements, and the transition to sedentary life.

Fertility in Peninsular Malaysia has declined continuously from the late 1950s, reaching a TFR of 3735 in 1983. All ethnic groups in Malaysia have contributed to this modern demographic transition but the rate of change has been most rapid for Chinese and Indians, Malay fertility having reached a plateau in the early 1980s. The effect of age structure, marital patterns and marital fertility (by parity) on the fertility declines for each ethnic community are analysed. Continuation of current trends would lead to replacement-level fertility for Malaysian Chinese and Indians by the year 2000. Malay fertility is likely to continue to decline but at a more moderate pace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]