Can I Have the #2? And Can You Super Size It???

      Submitted by Jamiylah Miller 

      Last Friday my mother was taken to the hospital. She was complaining about having blurred vision and mild headaches. After entering the hospital, her blood was drawn to check her blood glucose level. For the average person the numerical level should be between 70 and 120mg/dL. My mom’s glucose level was over 180mg/dL. That is severely dangerous because my mom has Type 2 Diabetes. She has been diabetic for almost thirty years and this is the first time, since she has been diagnosed, that she has been hospitalized for an unstable glucose level. Diabetes is a major health risk in the African American community. It is normally caused by obesity, unhealthy dieting and heredity.

      Diabetes is developed when insulin is not produced and regulated in the body. Specifically in type 2 diabetes it is when the blood glucose level is too high and the body cannot produce enough insulin to counteract the imbalance. According to the National Diabetes Education Program “a person is at a higher risk if they are of an ethnic group such as African Americans, are obese, and/or have a family history of the condition.” Like most African Americans, my mom could check off all three as being categories that best describe her. I think that out of three of three risks that obesity is the closest linking risk to African Americans. A major part of the community and culture is food and among the foods consumed most are deep fried, from fast food restaurants, or are artificially flavored. In class, there was a movie clip about how inequality affects health. The clip touch bases on how foods that are artificially flavored, processed and just simply unhealthy such as fast foods are targeted towards the poor because it is normally cheap and convenient. Poverty and diabetes are relative because they are both at a high in the African American community. Since fast food is easily accessible and cheap it is consumed the most causing obesity which leads to diabetes.

      Furthermore, the African-Americans community has a higher rate of chronic diseases, mortality, and overall poorer health outcomes including obesity and diabetes. I believe that too many African Americans are not making the connection between the need of maintaining a healthy diet and diseases such as diabetes as a result of both culture and lack of resources. One way to begin to curb the occurrence of such a disease in the African American community is to increase access to healthier options and educate individuals about maintaining their health.