Food and Health in Native Communities
Health Disparity
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
health disparities are “preventable differences in the burden of
disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health
that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations.” Factors
contributing to health disparity include: poverty, environmental
threats, inadequate access to health care, individual and behavioral
factors, education inequalities (CDC, 2015).
Native populations are vulnerable to these risk factors due to a long
history of settler colonialism. According to the Indian Health
Services, the average life expectancy of American Indians and Alaska
Natives is four years shorter than that of the U.S. all races population.
American Indians and Alaska Natives die at higher rates than other
Americans from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus,
unintentional injuries, assault/homicide, intentional selfharm/suicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases (IHS, 2015).
Of these causes of death, chronic liver disease and diabetes are noncommunicable diseases. In 2013, Native people were almost two and
a half times as likely to die of liver disease than non- Hispanic
whites. Between 2004-2008, Natives were almost three times as likely
to be living with diabetes and almost twice as likely to die from it
(OMH, 2015).
What are Non-communicable
Diseases?
Non-communicable diseases, also known as chronic diseases, are
diseases that are not passed from person to person. There are four
main types of non-communicable diseases:
• cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke)
• cancer
• chronic respiratory disease (COPD and asthma)
• Diabetes (WHO, 2015)
Some forms of liver disease are also non communicable.
According to the CDC, heart disease was the leading cause of death
in Native communities in 2013. cfollowed by cancer as the second
leading cause of death. Diabetes accounts for the fourth leading
cause of death in Natives, followed by liver disease as the fifth leading
ause of death, and chronic respiratory disease as the sixth CDC,
2013).
Risk Factors
There are two types of risk factors that contribute to noncommunicable disease– modifiable and non-modifiable. Modifiable
risk factors focus on individual behaviors that contribute to the risk
of disease such as diet and exercise. Although these are considered
individual behaviors, diet and lifestyle are heavily influenced by
culture, social status, and policy.
Through colonialization, Natives have been made to eat a
Westernized diet filled with empty calories and lacking proper
nutrition contributing to high rates of obesity and increading the risk
of preventable disease. Dr. Neal Barnard calls the United States
federal dietary guidelines “promoting a meaty, cheesy diet… the
nutritional equivalent of a smallpox-infected blankets” arguing that
the dietary guidelines ignore minority health. He points to the fact
that most Natives are lactose intolerant and the guidelines push for
two to three servings of dairy daily. In order to improve their health,
the health of their communities, and to preserve traditional foods
some Natives have been returning to traditional ways of eating.
Returning to Ancient Foods
In an effort to bring awareness to Native Health Issues and to
provide a way to improve the health of Natives, Devon Mihesuah,
citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and Chickasaw
descendant, started the American Indian Health and Diet Project.
Originally, she intended to publish a book, but to make the
information more accessible, she posted the information online.
Mihesuah’s book is pictured to the right
On her website, Mihesuah provides a multitude of resources a list of
foods that are native to the western hemisphere as well as region
specific lists. For foods native to the Great Lakes Region, Mihesuah
points to Dr. Martin Reinhardt’s list. Reinhardt is a professor of
Native Studies at Northern Michigan University. He started the
Decolonizing Diet Project in 2012. Follow the QR code to the right
to find more information about this project.
On the American Indian Health and Diet Project Website,
information can also be found about how to garden in so that
indviduals and communities can produce foods in order to promote
health
By returning to a more nutritious, traditional diet, Native
communities can reduce incidence of disease and disease related
deaths.
Devon Minnesuah, author of Recovering our Ancestors’ Gardens
Minnesuah’s book
Follow this code for more
information about Dr.
Martin Reinhardt’s
Decolonizing Diet Project
Sources
American Indian Health and Diet Project. “American Indian Health and Diet
Project.” Last Modified 2015. http://www.aihd.ku.edu/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “American Indian & Alaska Native
Populations.” Last Modified July 31, 2015.
http://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/populations/REMP/aian.html
Devon A. Mihesuah, “Decolonizing Our Diets By Recovering our Ancestors’
Gardens,” American Indian Quarterly 27 (2003) 807-839, Accessed November
1, 2015. doi: 10.1353/aiq.2004.0084.
Neal D. Barnard & Derek M. Brown. “U.S. Dietary Guidelines Unfit for Native
Americans.” Accessed November 1, 2015.
http://www.dontgotmilk.com/nativeamericans.html
Indian Health Services. “Disparities.” Accessed October 21, 2015.
https://www.ihs.gov/newsroom/index.cfm/factsheets/disparities/
Office of Minority Health. “Profile: American Indian/Alaska Native.” Last
Modified February 19, 2015.
http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvlid=62
World Health Organization. “Noncommunicable diseases.” Last Modified January
2015. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs355/en/