Exam 6: Diabetes, Diet and Nutrition

Correct Answer:

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I. Traditional diets have changed dramatically, shifting from a diet dependent on eating natural/country foods (e.g., fish, berries, game), to a diet laden with unhealthy saturated/fatty processed and high carbohydrate foods, thereby increasing the risk of developing diabetes.
An increase of the carbohydrate (sugar) content of their foods leads to insulin resistance and eventually type II diabetes mellitus, or to gestational diabetes.
ii. Poverty and the loss of social status contribute to increasing rates of diabetes because of the inability/difficulty of families to purchase healthy, but more expensive, store bought food.
There has been a decline in number of youths and adults interested in hunting as the tools, fuel, transportation, time from work, etc., required are often expensive.
iii. A loss of culture/identity due to colonization and residential schools and a loss of traditional healing practices have led to an increase in substance misuse (particularly of alcohol) in communities. Substance misuse leads in turn to communities becoming susceptible to increased risks of disease/mortality as alcoholics are not usually following an optimum diet and exercise regime.
iv. Access to healthcare services is not readily available on reserves. A lack of healthcare services leads to lack of health promotion practices and education on the benefits of consuming nutritious foods, which in turn contributes to delayed diagnosis/treatment of diabetes.
v. Sedentary lifestyle: Where once Aboriginals lived off the land self-sufficiently, they were relegated to living on reserves that were often marginal. With the loss of traditional lands, they were restricted in their ability to actively hunt, fish and forage to provide for themselves. They increasingly developed a much more sedentary lifestyle leading to increased levels of obesity and a correlating increase in diabetes.
Obesity, in turn, places people at increased risk of developing diabetes.
vi. Indigenous peoples have lower levels of (formal) education as compared with the general population, and therefore they often lack the knowledge necessary to make informed choices regarding their health. Therefore, an individual's ability to manage the disease may be somewhat limited as there is often a difficulty in understanding the risks associated with the disease as it relates to diet, exercise and insulin therapy.