Pacific Island doctors have raised their fear that low-grade meats are being sold to the region.

According to Fiji Times Online, doctors said this could be why people in the Pacific are fat.

Reports said while one reason Islanders were fat was attributed to lack of or no exercise at all, the problem was heightened by NZ selling cheap fatty meat such as mutton and lamb flaps - the loose bits on the end of chops - to the islands.

According to the report, a medical practitioner in Nadi, Fiji, Dr Ram Raju, concurred saying, "We do seem to be getting second-grade lamb here".

"I don't see this grade in New Zealand," Dr Raju told the New Zealand Herald.

He called on the State to impose a ban on meat products that would not be sold to a western country.