Plate Half-Empty or Half-Full? Dietary Continuity and Change Among the Blackfeet

Abstract

Perceptions about Native American health and food habits are shaped in part by the intensive research focus on rates of Type 2 diabetes and obesity among these populations. The emphasis on the problematic characteristics of modern Native American food habits and lifestyles may unwittingly foster undesired outcomes as members of these communities internalize negative messages about their own ways of eating and living. This approach also may lead to missed opportunities to discover diversity within a community that can offer models of positive deviance. Data from the diets of four generations of Blackfeet women show that not only have food habits changed in ways that may contribute to the prevalence of chronic diseases, but there is a pattern of dietary continuity from the past, even among some of the youngest women, that carries some recipes for a healthier approach to food choice as well as some inherently healthful preferences. Anthropologists must continue the effort to provide a balance in the messages that go out to the public-at-large about the food habits and health of the populations with which they collaborate.

KEYWORDS:

• Blackfeet
• Native American
• diet
• food habits
• food choice
• risk factors
• diabetes
• obesity
• chronic disease

This research was funded in part by a grant from the American Lung Association.

Notes

¹Intended to be inclusive also of Alaska Natives and Canadian aboriginal peoples.