men and women

[Ken Hanly]

Obesity certainly is a factor increasing the risk of Type II
(non-insulin-dependent diabetes). Obesity in turn is a function of lifestyle
and diet but it is hardly true to say that the diet was forced upon
aboriginals. It is not as if non-traditional diets that would not produce
obesity were not available. Aboriginal women are more likely to get type ii
diabetes than men generally. However, age is an even more significant
factor. Type ii diabetes in all populations is a disease of older persons.
By the way Inuit have lower rates of diabetes even than the general
population and much lower than other northern aboriginal peoples. Genetic
factors also seem to play a role. The picture is quite complex. Although
generally the less 'isolated" aboriginal populations have higher rates,
several Canadian studies show higher rates on reserves than in aboriginals
living in cities. Studies also show that aboriginal groups living close to
one another and in similar conditions may have quite different rates of
diabetes.

  For detailed studies see::
http://www.interchange.ubc.ca/bceio/DR_paper.html

Cheers, Ken Hanly

P.S. But what if people consider having higher risks of kidney failure, eye
problems, and all the complications associated with type II diabetes
as normal? Arent you using fitness and lower risks as normal and more
desireable. This is to privilege the lower risks associated with the fit
non-diabetic and hence to negatively evaluate the diabetic against the
non-diabetic life. Your  type of argumentation seems to have a family
resemblance  to what some disability activists would call ableist.  Is there
any significant difference? Believing that disabilities should be "cured" or
that the disabled should be aided to do that which the able can do as much
as possible and that one should feel sorry for those with disabilities, and
so on are all part of  the ableist ideology that sees disabled lives
negatively, that we should feel sorry for the disabled, and although not all
disabilities are curable we should try to ensure that the disabled can
become as much like the able as possible--through technology etc.

----- Original Message -----
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: men and women


> >  > Right.  American workers are given fantasies of fit
> >>  bodies by
> >>  Hollywood, rather than high wages, national health
> >>  care, & vacation
> >>  days when they can exercise.
> >>
> >>  Yoshie
> >
> >This made me think of a Phil Gramm quote I saw the
> >other day: "Has anyone ever noticed that we live in
> >the only country in the world where all the poor
> >people are fat?"  The "unfit" body can have political
> >relevance as a target for stigma (lazy, ugly, etc.).
> >
> >Alec
>
> Artists like John Waters & Jennifer Reeder have made careers riffing
> on the stigma of the "unfit."
>
> That said, one can't quite embrace all degrees of obesity as one may
> embrace dark skin & nappy hair, small hips & almond eyes, and so on
> (which have been also stigmatized as "ugly" by racists), for too much
> fat can have dire health consequences.  In many tribes, for instance,
> morbidity & mortality from diabetes are high, due to poor diets &
> environments that settler colonialism has forced upon them.  In
> short, one can't reject physical fitness altogether as just another
> instance of the "tyranny of normalization."
>
> Yoshie