Diabetes among the Pima: Stories of Survival

As an anthropologist interested in traditional diets and health, I found Diabetes Among the Pima to be an excellent book on Pima attitudes toward modern, allopathic medicine. Dr. Smith-Morris does a great job of connecting with her subjects to draw out how the Pima understand diabetes, nutrition and healthcare. Mothers who eat nutrient-dense foods prior to and during gestation will have a greater chance of avoiding gestational diabetes, and in turn their offspring will less likely inherit the propensity for developing diabetes mellitus during their lifetime. Dr. Smith-Morris touches on this, though I would have liked to have read more on the Pima traditional diet and efforts to reintroduce nutrient-dense foods as part of the plan to reduce the effect of diabetes.

DIABETES AMONG THE PIMA: STORIES OF SURVIVAL could've been featured in our Health Section, but is reviewed here for its narrowed focus on Native health and health care in this country. While the Pima community receives the primary focus, DIABETES AMONG THE PIMA offering the first in-depth ethnographic analysis of all causes of diabetes in this community, the book holds wider recommendation for examining Pima core values, health attitudes, and attitudes toward treatment, making it a 'must' for any college-level Native American collection. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch