Health Education: Shri Durga Temple Problem

Type 2 diabetes is on the increase across the United States, but it has become a particularly difficult and intractable problem in Asian and East Asian communities. These populations tend to manifest type 2 diabetes at lower BMIs than the general population. According to Monhan (2004), “Indians have a greater degree of insulin resistance and a stronger genetic predisposition to diabetes. (par.1). This fact can lead to insufficient concern about BMI, particularly if residents compare themselves to non-East Asian neighbors.

Solution

Vigilance over one’s own health and over the health of individuals in one’s immediate ethnic community has an important preventative function and can reduce the need for more costly and intrusive secondary and tertiary care. Of course, regular primary care from a physician is optimal as a preventative measure for a variety of ailments, but maintaining a healthy weight ultimately requires self-monitoring

Opportunity

With this in mind, I seized the opportunity to be a health educator at the Shri Durga Temple Bakersfield in October of this year. My appearance was part of a day-long workshop designed to engage in population-specific health outreach...

As well as lectures, the event offered health screening of cholesterol levels, blood sugar levels, blood pressure levels, BMI, and waist measurements to provide a general assessment of participants’ health. Of course, this was not designed as a replacement for physician care but rather to act as motivation to participants to seek out additional primary care or simply to make healthier choices. The event also had a blood donation center. The focus was on health improvement overall, but with a specific focus on type 2 diabetes and reducing factors that increase the likelihood an individual will develop the disease, such as a high BMI and a larger weight circumference than is optimal.
The event provided the opportunity to offer a wakeup call to members of the community about their health. Sometimes, seeing the numbers communicate to a patient that they need to prioritize their health to a greater degree in the way comments from friends and family, however well-meaning, cannot. Particularly in this community, outreach is necessary to communicate that what may be a normal BMI for their population is not necessarily the norm for the general population. Also, standards of weight may differ…