No easy answers to high rates of obesity among Nebraska's American Indians »
“For about two weeks, I was pretty devastated, of course,” he said. “But then you know, diabetes is kind of like a slap in the face. You’re too young to remember the screen doors, back before we had air conditioning, but the screen door had a big spring on it, and once in a while, if you were a kid, and you forgot about it, it’d come and hit you right in the face.” 
Diabetes and obesity have reached epidemic proportions among American Indians, particularly in Nebraska, where more than one in four American Indian adults reported being diagnosed with diabetes, according to a 2009 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
In Nebraska, the rate of obesity for tribes is double that of Hispanics and African-Americans and almost four times as high as non-Hispanic Caucasians.
Diabetes can shorten a person’s lifespan by fifteen years. On average, annual medical costs for diabetic people are five times that of non-diabetic individuals, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services …
