Learning to be healthy: An Aboriginal youth perspective

Abstract

Healthy isn’t something that you are; healthy is something that you learn to be. Aboriginal youth face higher risks of negative health factors than any other ethnic group in Canada (1,2). The one thing that separates the Aboriginal youth population and their health statistics from other groups in Canada is the fact that most, if not all, of the health risks can be directly or indirectly attributed to recent actions in history. My sister Karen is 18 years old and a grade 12 student. I asked her to share her perspective and some of her experiences with me. As a young person, she sees her friends unwinding in unhealthy ways, such as smoking, using alcohol and doing drugs, and there are constant negative comments and attitudes coming from teachers and other students. She feels the mental health of other Aboriginal students is not doing all that well either. The sad part is that these behaviours and their negative effects are accepted as the norm by both those who participate in the behaviours and those who observe them (ie, other students, teachers and others). Only a few who are working hard to change these behaviours truly understand the underlying causes. Those are one person’s observations. There are also the statistics. Aboriginal youth are the fastest growing demographic in Canada (1). Social workers remove Aboriginal children from their homes at a faster rate than non-Aboriginal children (2). Aboriginal children and youth face higher rates of suicide, hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS, cancer, improper tobacco and alcohol use, obesity, accidental injury and depression (1). Not only are these issues affecting Aboriginal children on the surface, there is also the fact that in First Nations (both on and off reserve), Metis and Inuit communities, Aboriginal youth receive less funding and less programming and have access to fewer resources than the average young person in Canada (2). Healthy isn’t just something you are, it is something you learn to be, and it is really hard to be healthy when there is no way to learn to be so.