Program focuses on well-being of urban aboriginals

The N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre is taking steps to improve the health of the aboriginal people who use the facility. Last October, the centre launched the Urban Aboriginal Healthy Living Program, which aims to help community members increase their physical activity levels and cardio-vascular health; to become smoke-free; to increase their knowledge of nutrition, healthy eating practices and weight management; and to enhance the leadership ability of the youth.

“The health status of urban aboriginal people, and aboriginal people in general, is below the national health standard,” said Lisa Marie Naponse, health promotion officer for the N’Swakamok Native Friendship Centre. Urban aboriginals are described as those living off reserves, in the city.

“This program is needed to educate urban aboriginal people of healthy eating habits, and ways they could increase physical activity. It’s really just to increase the health of our people.”

In a Statistics Canada study of obesity and the eating habits of the aboriginal people, dated January 2008, it was reported that off-reserve aboriginal people aged 19 to 50, living in Ontario in 2004, were two-and-a-half times more likely to be obese or overweight, compared with their non-aboriginal contemporaries — particularly aboriginal women, aged 19 to 30.

Through the program, which is being run in Friendship Centres across the province, Naponse collaborates with other organizations within the city — the most recent ones being Family Kickboxing and Arts North — to promote “innovative ways” of healthy living.

“At Arts North we have a membership where participants can choose from a variety of classes to attend each week,” Naponse explained. “At Family Kickboxing, we had a six-week program — most participants were aboriginal girls and women.”

So far, Naponse said the feedback has been positive. “A lot of people get excited about it because I try to do activities ... they haven’t tried, like kickboxing,” she explained. “Some participants have lost weight by participating.

They are always talking about their health and how it has improved from participating in the program.”

Since the program's inception, the centre has acquired more exercise equipment — exercise balls, basketball and soccer balls, and boxing gloves — and has doubled the participants to about 65.

“Aboriginal people want that avenue to participate in physical activity, and to know more about it," the health promoter said. "They just need something to provide that opportunity for them.”

In a Statistics Canada article, titled the Health of the Off-reserve Aboriginal Population (2001), it is stated that health determinants, such as low socio-economic status, smoking and obesity, were more prevalent in the off-reserve aboriginal population, compared with non-aboriginal populations.

“Overall, aboriginal people have poorer health than other Canadians,” wrote Michael Tjepkema, the author of the report. “In the past several decades, diseases that were previously rare in aboriginal communities have become more common. It is thought that the rise of the ‘new’ diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, can be attributed to the rapid social, dietary and lifestyle changes experienced by some aboriginal communities over this period.”

Naponse said adapting to a new environment could be, in part, a contributing factor to the poor health of aboriginals.

“A lot of First Nations people move off reserves because there’s no opportunities, so they move to an urban centre so they can have employment,” she said. “This program is taking action now. We can talk and talk about all these things that happened before, but now we’re actually taking action and becoming more healthy.”