In updating its guidelines – a first since 2006 – Obesity Canada advocates for the recognition of obesity as a disease and encourages health professionals to review their approach.
Unlike the guide published 14 years ago, the one that has just appeared in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association identifies distinct dynamics in dealing with obesity issues among Aboriginal people.
“There is a strong relationship between stress, health and obesity,” reads the publication co-signed by more than sixty doctors and health specialists.
The causes of obesity are complex
, each person with their own history which can explain the overweight problems, and some personal and historical factors may include the effects of settlement and residential schools
, note the researchers.
Among non-Aboriginals and Aboriginals alike, obesity coexists and interacts with other physical and mental health problems, both acute and chronic, but also with complex social, cultural, environmental and behavioral factors
, they add.
In the case of members of indigenous communities, this burden can be even more difficult to bear, they analyze.
The burden of concurrent morbidities is often greater among Aboriginal people than among the rest of the Canadian population. It stems from the social inequalities that were perpetuated by colonization.
Some Aboriginal patients have lived with this stigma forever, which can have a “cumulative effect on obesity”. This means that obesity problems can be caused by responses
what do these people have “to the omnipresent stressors in their life”, one explains.
Among the factors that health professionals should consider when providing care to members of Indigenous communities suffering from obesity, researchers point to a systemic problem of inequalities, which manifests itself particularly in the system. health and social services.
These inequities influence food security, for example, due to lower wages that are the result of a lack of accessibility to education and high food costs in urban and remote areas.
, emphasize the authors.
Fight your preconceived ideas
Among the recommendations made by the authors of the guide, it is suggested that healthcare professionals recognize stressful experiences
experienced by the patient, which can cause certain health and obesity problems. Health specialists should try to find with their patient a way to reduce said stress, it is noted.
In particular, trauma and bereavement can be involved in certain cases. It is then up to the health specialist to better understand these problems and their consequences.
Health professionals are also invited to question their perceptions and challenge their preconceived ideas about Indigenous people, which are the product of systemic racism
, write the authors of the report.
Researchers also advocate better access to resources for people suffering from obesity in Aboriginal communities. These services, they say, should be public and affordable.
According to figures published in 2019 in the First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study (EANEPN), 66% of First Nations adults in Quebec are struggling with obesity, compared to the national average, which is 25%.
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