Rooting Out Disease: Diabetes in Desert Dwellers and Obesity in US

This report provides a comparative analysis of two articles addressing diabetes and obesity, focusing on the factors that contribute to these health issues. The first article examines diabetes among desert dwellers, particularly Native Americans in the US and Mexico, exploring how dietary changes have increased their susceptibility. The second article discusses the rising rates of obesity in the US, highlighting its correlation with diabetes and other health problems, especially among Black Americans. The report compares the methodologies and findings of both articles, discussing the role of healthcare access, dietary habits, and the impact of obesity on morbidity and mortality. The analysis also explores the differing perspectives on the causes of diabetes, contrasting the view that it results from excessive calorie intake with the argument that it stems from consuming the wrong quality and quantity of calories. The study references the impact of drought-adapted plants on Native American diets and their metabolic adaptations. This comparison offers insights into public health challenges and disparities in health outcomes.

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Rooting Out the Causes of Disease is about the factors that cause the diabetes in the adults
and the reasons due to which it affects the desert dwellers the most. The research on this topic
has been done by conducting interviews with the elders of the families. Basically, the
researcher has included the Native Americans in this study who belong to US and Mexico.
Americans are fatter than ever is another result of one of the biggest researches that has been
conducted in the US. The study was conducted to know the reasons and the causes of obesity
in the people and the impact of obesity on the diabetes of the people. The research found that
the problem was common in the Black Americans the most.
Comparison between two texts: Rooting Out the Causes of Disease: Why Diabetes Is So
Common among Desert Dwellers by Gary Paul Nabhan and Americans are fatter than ever,
CDC finds by Carina Storrs
 The article ‘Americans are fatter than ever’ is based on one of the largest and the
broadest surveys related to health in the US. The results of the survey showed that
people in this country are largely affected by obesity and diabetes. "There are some
positives that we see in the report,” said Brian Ward, health statistician at CDC's
National Center for Health Statistics and one of the authors of the report ("Americans
Are Fatter Than Ever, CDC Survey Finds"). It has been found in the survey that in
comparison to the previous years, people had more access to healthcare. They were
insured and they were able to reach the office of the doctors and the clinics easily.
But, the obesity was rising among the people. However, Nabhan does not agree to this
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because in his opinion, the facilities are not available to treat the people in proper
way. This is due to the reason that most of people are Natives, they live in villages or
they are the tribal people. They do not get proper treatment and resources to get them
cured from the problem of diabetes. Even if they are diagnosed, they do not have
access to the good doctors and clinics where they can reach and take advice from the
specialists.
Carina Storrs assumed that people are aware about the fact that the problem has
solution, can be cured, doctors are available and resources are also there which needs
to be accessed by them for getting them cured. But, Nabhan did not have any such
assumptions. He did not assume that the villagers and the tribes would be aware about
the facilities that are available to them, no matter under what conditions or in what
numbers.
 The article ‘Americans are fatter than ever’ states that the rate of obesity is found to
be higher among the Black Americans. However, in the other article, the problem of
diabetes has been found to be more common in the Native Americans specifically
those who reside in US and Mexico. Carina Storrs has written that obesity has effect
on the morbidity and the mortality that is caused due to diabetes. The people start
suffering from the heart diseases and they die prematurely. In like manner, ‘Rooting
Out the Causes of Disease by Gary Paul Nabhan’ has stated that the nutrition related
disease, diabetes is one of the top three causes of death among the Americans.
The article ‘Americans are fatter than ever’ has mentioned that the cause of diabetes is
obesity among the people. On the contrary, Nabhan identified that diabetes was not
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cause due to intake of more calories by the people, but it was happening because the
people were consuming the calories in incorrect quantity and quality. Also, Carina
Storrs has mentioned that cancers occur due to obesity. With the rise in obesity, the
diabetes in people also rises.
These problems can be handled if the people are taking proper diet and they are doing
sufficient physical activity. But, Nabhan has stated, “there was a relationship between
the susceptibility of desert dwellers and drought-adapted plants in their diet. These
plants contained certain characteristics and mechanisms that acted as “protection”
against diabetes once ingested by the Native Americans. Since they had been
consuming them for 10,000 years, they developed metabolic adaptations to these
foods. However, now that their diets are changing it had become maladaptive and the
evolutionary process must begin again for them to adapt to these new, Western foods”
(Nabhan, 2012). In this way, the problem could be solved.
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References:
"Americans Are Fatter Than Ever, CDC Survey Finds". CNN, 2016,
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/25/health/americans-health-obesity-diabetes/.
Nabhan, Gary Paul. "Rooting out the causes of disease: why diabetes is so common
among desert dwellers." Food and Culture: A Reader (2012): 330.
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