men and women

[Ken Hanly]

I agree with most everything you say. Poverty among aboriginals certainly is
a factor influencing poor diet choice. However it also seems to be a matter
of the wide availability of cheap junk type foods in non-isolated areas, and
the convenience of buying cheap fatty prepared meats such as bologna. An
aboriginal student in a class of mine that I taught on a reserve claimed
that as a kid they had tons of bologna and fat ground beef and junk foods
and most of his family had type ii diabetes.
Aboriginal children consume not only fats but lots of sweets and snack
foods. This may explain the strange phenomenon that type ii diabetes is now
found among young aboriginal children not infrequently. Type ii diabetes
usually occurs in adults especially older adults in fact it is sometimes
called adult-onset diabetes.

    Before 1940 there seems to have been almost no diabetes among
aboriginals or at least very low rates. I have a personal interest in type
ii diabetes since I have it myself.

    Many native groups are trying to make their people more aware of
possible complications of type ii diabetes and to improve diets and
management. My casual observation based on talking to a number of people
with the diabetes ii on hte reserve was that many just accepted the
condition and tended to live and eat as before resulting in severe
complications in some instances. One of my students was a grandma who was in
danger of losing a limb because of complications but she continued to eat a
fatty and sweet diet even though she had just been released from hospital!.
Perhaps it has something  to do with feeling powerless or fatalistic I dont
know. Of course I can recall being in a hospital with a white guy who had
just had one lung removed. His first trip when he was mobile was to a
waiting room where people were allowed to smoke at that time! Easierto lose
a lung than stop smoking!

Cheers, Ken Hanly

----- Original Message -----
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2001 1:38 AM
Subject: Re: men and women


> Ken Hanly says:
>
> >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.
>
> Nutritious non-traditional diets are available but often less
> affordable than unhealthy alternatives for Indians, who like Blacks
> are on the average much poorer than other groups in the States.
> Focus groups conducted by the Center for Disease Control and
> Prevention found that "[a]lthough participants want to follow a diet
> regimen that will help control their diabetes, they said that foods
> such as fresh fruits and vegetables and leaner cuts of meat are not
> affordable.  Government commodities -- often high in fat and sugars
> -- constitute a significant portion of their diet" (at
> <http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/focus/lessons.htm>).
>
> >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
>
> Thanks for the link.  I agree that the picture is quite complex.  My
> brief post certainly doesn't explain the differences found among
> Indians.  Other things being equal, though, poverty tends to lead to
> poor diets.
>
> >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.
>
> One of these days, we need to get back to our debates with Marta.
>
> Yoshie