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Sunday, November 08, 2009
Native American Diabetes Rx: Run, Dance, Pray
By Leslie Linthicum
Journal Staff Writer
SANTO DOMINGO PUEBLO — The diabetes curriculum being presented in teacher Ricardo Cate's social studies class on this sunny afternoon has yet to mention diabetes.
The 10 seventh-graders have talked about communities and what they can do to enhance the place they live. Ideas? "Keep it clean." "Preserve the language." "Take part in dances."
The discussion bounces between English and Keres, the language of the pueblo, and Cate asks everyone to draw a circle because, "In our culture, things happen in circles."
Inside those circles, the kids carve out the aspects of a full life — physical, mental, spiritual and emotional components — and set about describing how they can make sure they fulfill them: eating healthy foods, being active, participating in the corn dance, paying attention in school, trusting in your self-esteem.
Cate's class would normally be learning about the Revolutionary War at this point in the school year, but Santo Domingo School has decided that learning how to prevent diabetes is more critical to these kids right now.
Diabetes is almost three times more common among Native Americans than in the general population, and a show of hands in Cate's classroom confirms what I suspected. Every student has at least one relative with diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes is one of the most confounding problems in Indian country, because it is disabling and deadly while at the same time preventable and nearly curable with simple changes in diet and exercise. Federal, state and tribal governments have thrown gobs of money and smarts at diabetes prevention and treatment programs over the decades, and still the problem grows.
When you look at all the efforts, you begin to wonder whether there will ever be a prevention program that works.
And that brings us to Santo Domingo School, where the newest approach, the Diabetes-Based Education in Tribal Schools program, is being used. The free curriculum was designed in part at Albuquerque's Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute and was launched in 2008. It's now being taught in about 60 schools throughout the nation.
Carol Maller, director of the program at SIPI, said the curriculum is based in comparing traditional Native American life, which revolved around lean foods and daily activity, and Native American life today, which includes processed foods, fast food and jobs and leisure time pursuits that are sedentary.
"The way we approach it with students is that it's a lifestyle disease," Maller says. "We look at the way things used to be, traditional lifestyle, and then we look at their lifestyle today and (the cause) becomes very obvious."
Will this approach hold the key to unlock the puzzle? That question won't be answered for a generation. The idea is to start with kids, who do not yet have widespread diabetes, and give them the tools they need to lead a balanced life so they won't develop it. And then send them into the community to turn the tables and teach their elders.
"These foot soldiers," Cate tells me, "they're going to go into their families and spread the word."
Some of Cate's lessons (run, dance, pray) reinforce pueblo traditions. Others run counter to them.
"I tell them how bad flour is, and that is an essential part of our diet," Cate says. It stars in tortillas and fry bread and horno bread.
Jonell Garcia has already taken some lessons into her home, where her grandmother and grandfather both have diabetes. The 13-year-old is encouraging her parents and grandparents to get more active, even if it's just keeping busy with housework.
"I told them don't sit around and watch TV," Jonell says. "And to eat vegetables and not greasy foods like hamburgers and bacon."
She's an enthusiastic advocate in her home of vegetable soup.
So far, Jonell's advice has resulted in some diet and activity changes at home, and it has been accepted in the spirit that it's been given.
"They just say, 'We didn't learn this in school when we were kids.' "
UpFront is a daily front-page opinion column. You can reach Leslie at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com.
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