No monkeying around with this diet

FEELING a bit flabby after Christmas? Could do with losing a few kilograms?

If so, take a leaf out of the book of a fat orang-utan from Johannesburg who has lost a quarter of her body weight in a strictly controlled diet.

Gone are sweets, marshmallows, cakes, jelly and all things bad. In has come a healthy diet of fruit, vegetables and plenty of exercise, which has seen her weight drop from 100kg to 75kg in just 16 months.

Tubby orang-utan Oshine was placed on the strict diet in the UK after arriving at the Monkey World sanctuary from her previous home in Johannesburg in August 2010, where she had been kept as a pet for 12 years.

As well as the healthy lifestyle, 14-year-old Oshine has been encouraged to swing around her enclosure and be more active, playing with baby orang-utans for the first time in her life.

Dr Alison Cronin, director of Monkey World in Dorset, England, said the O-diet had made a slimmed-down Oshine a happier primate, but also reduced health risks familiar to overweight humans.

She said: "Oshine is fantastic and more active than she's ever been. She lost a quarter of her body weight, but could probably still do with losing another 20kg to get to her ideal weight.

"When she was in South Africa she did get her five food groups of fruit and veg, protein etcetera, but she was also given the biscuits, cakes and sweet stuff which, coupled with a lack of exercise, saw her weight increase.

"Like in humans, that increases the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular problems and diabetes, so it was important to get the weight down. Being morbidly obese also causes fertility issues and one day we'd like to see Oshine pregnant."

Oshine was born in a zoo in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, but was given to a Johannesburg couple - whom Monkey World declined to identify - as a baby to raise as a pet. She grew up in the house wearing clothes and was much loved, said Cronin.

However, at age seven she became difficult to keep inside and the family built an enclosure for her. But with little exercise and a poor diet her weight ballooned until they could not cope and contacted Monkey World in 2008.

Two years later Oshine made the 10-and-a-half-hour flight from Johannesburg to London inside a specially adapted crate.

Now, said Cronin, she is enjoying life at the sanctuary, scaling 20m climbing frames and hanging from her toes and even adopting an orphaned baby orang-utan named Silvestre.

"I suppose the moral of the story is that ... this wasn't a faddy diet. This was a well-balanced diet with plenty of exercise. She'll never be some skinny, Twiggy model but she can be happy at her ideal weight and live an active life,'' Cronin said.