Mallory Rogers

A Forced Issue II: Diabetes in Mexican Americans

As a continuation of my first research posting, I initially researched health issues in and within Native American communities.  The most common illness Native Americans suffer from is noted scientifically as diabetes, more specifically type II diabetes, which is caused by obesity.  As I continues researching this issue I repeatedly noted there were numerous articles involving the Hispanic community—especially the alarming rate of Hispanic children suffering from diabetes. The correlation between diabetes and yet another culture led me to stray from the Native American research and instead focus on the Hispanic culture’s ties to the same prevalent disease.

According to the National Council of La Raza, 39% of Mexican-American children ages 6 to 11 and 43% of Mexican-American adolescents ages 12 to 19 are obese.  As the largest and fastest growing racial and ethnic minority in America, this trend is now a wide-spread epidemic. Much like Native Americans, researchers contribute this growing trend to the hardships many Mexican-Americans face—mainly access to limited resources and the lack of a healthy and nutritious diet.  The report states that nearly 48% of all Hispanic children live in central city households, which translates into communities that lack opportunity for physical activities. Instead of sports, children revert to bad habits to fill their time including watching television and over eating.  This, coupled with the fact that poverty is prevalent among these communities, denies Hispanics living in these areas access to healthy and nutritious food and thus, a healthy lifestyle. 

Obesity is the leading cause of type II diabetes in Mexican-American youth. Endocrine Today’s Dr. Enrique Caballero, M.D. says, “the elevated risk for type II diabetes is based on genetics because Mexican-Americans are more insulin resistant than those of other heritages.” Dr. Alan Garber adds that for many Mexican-Americans, suffering from diabetes is inevitable. Part of the problem he says, is culture-driven in that many Hispanic families do not take any provisions of health care into consideration because the majority lacks affordable, quality health insurance. It is noted that even though a large group of Mexican-Americans do not have health insurance, one way to curb this trend is to consider wallet-friendly alternatives such as altering diets.

In Food, Culture, and Diabetes in the United States, Dr. Karmeen Kulkarni examines the Mexican-American diet and reveals the ways in which implementing traditional culture practices can actually lower the prevalence of diabetes.   The article begins by identifying and agreeing with the concept that food is a large part of every culture, especially in Mexican-American culture. The traditional Mexican diet is composed of low fat, high fiber foods including corn, rice, beans, and tortillas which are all beneficial components of a healthy diet.  Today’s traditional Mexican cuisine has been altered significantly from its traditional sense in that today’s Mexican-American culture tends to include fatty meats and flour, not corn, tortillas. Experts agree that encouraging the consumption of traditional Mexican American foods can have a tremendous impact in lowering the number of type II diabetes cases in the Mexican American population.

While culture plays a significant role in determining lifestyle choices, the common factor between Native Americans and Mexican Americans susceptibility to type II diabetes is their diet. In Bless Me Ultima, traditional Mexican American food is reinforced as part of the culture as we read about Antonio’s school lunch, consisting of tortillas and beans. Even with hardships and the lack of preventative care, altering the diets of these cultures can make a large impact on their overall health and well-being.  There are numerous web sites, such as www.epicurious.com, that are dedicated to educating Mexican Americans on healthy alternative food choices by providing recipes that incorporate the traditional Hispanic diet.  Altering diets, for both Native Americans and Mexican Americans, can have an enormous impact on both cultures resulting in healthier populations and decreased cases of type II diabetes.

Bibliography

Eskanazi, Rachel. “Fighting ‘inevitability’ of developing type 2 diabetes in Mexican-

Americans.” Endocrine Today. 1 May 2006.  20 April 2010.

< http://www.endocrinetoday.com/view.aspx?rid=23957>

Fact Sheet: Key Facts About Childhood Obesity in the Latino Community. 2006.

National Council of La Raza. 20 April 2010. _<www.nclr.org/content/publications/detail/52523>

Kulkarni, MS., Dr. Karmeen. “Food, Culture, and Diabetes in the United States.” Clinical

             Diabetes. October 2004 V. 22:4: 190-194. 20 April 2010.

< http://clinical.diabetesjournals.org/content/22/4/190.full>

"Viva Healthy Mexican Food!" Epicurious.com. 2008. 20 April 2010.

< http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/healthy/nutritiousdishes/mexican>