Hunger in residential schools linked to health problems today
U of T studies long-term impacts of malnutrition on Indigenous children
For 13 years, Barney Williams Jr. remembers sitting in a dining room with his residential school classmates eating “mush” as he watched their disciplinarian feast on bacon, eggs, toast and jam.
“We didn’t get healthy food in the school. Mush in the morning and then sometimes wieners, baloney at times,” Williams recalled of his time at the B.C. school. “You had half an orange sometimes and if you were lucky, the bully didn’t take it. Most of us were hungry a lot of the time.”
A University of Toronto study published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows malnutrition and severe hunger in residential schools has contributed to long-term health issues in the Indigenous community, even among younger generations. Elevated risk of obesity and diabetes in Indigenous peoples can be linked back to the mistreatment of residential school children, the research says.
While moderately active children between 4 and 18 years old require 1,400 to 3,200 calories per day, the average daily calorie intake of a residential school student was 1,000 to 1,450 calories, according to estimates based on survivor testimony.
“Through most of the history of the schools, there was insufficient funding to actually purchase healthy foods for children, to hire appropriate staff,” said researcher Ian Mosby, an adjunct lecturer and food historian in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. “Particularly up until the late 1950s, schools were simply providing inadequate food.”
Mosby, along with Tracey Galloway, an assistant professor of anthropology, reviewed other studies about the effects of food deprivation on children during famines and other high-poverty environments.
“We found that those studies actually described the types of conditions that many survivors were themselves describing about the hunger that they were experiencing,” Mosby said.
Their research showed that children were more likely to experience a range of physiological effects due to malnourishment, such as heightstunting, which can lead to greater fat-mass accumulation and obesity once nutrition becomes available.
Height-stunted children also demonstrate greater insulin sensitivity and lower insulin levels, making them prone to developing Type 2 diabetes.
Williams said this helps explain what he’s seen first-hand since leaving the residential school system when he was 18.
“I really believe there’s a correlation between what’s happening with us,” he said. “I’m 77, I have heart problems, I’ve got spine problems, I have arthritis and a lot of peers have diabetes. I think it’s a carry-over.”
Williams recalled eating six orders of bacon and eggs in a restaurant one time after he got out of the residential school, much to the restaurant owner’s disbelief.
“I would take so much food. It was always that thought in the back of my mind that there wasn’t going to be enough,” he said. “We overeat now, a lot of us. I could eat half-a-dozen oranges in one sitting when I first came home.”
The U of T study suggests that the effects of childhood malnutrition may even be felt by children and grandchildren of survivors. Children of female survivors with obesity and diabetes are more likely to experience low or high birth weight, growth faltering and go on to develop insulin resistance and diabetes. These conditions have also been observed in studies of adult grandchildren of famine survivors.
“In most of the literature on diabetes, obesity and other chronic health conditions in Indigenous communities, this is not even mentioned as a cause,” Mosby said.
“One of the things that we want to do is to try to encourage physicians and medical practitioners and policy-makers to start thinking about the long-term effects of malnutrition in residential schools.”
Williams said he hopes continued research into the residential school system — which took150,000 Indigenous children away from their families — will help the public understand what many endured.
“For me, the key is ‘believe us,’” he said. “We’re not just making up stories. We’re not looking for sympathy. We’re looking to educate the general public about what happened to us.”