Happy Native American Day.

South Dakota has been celebrating it ever since the state legislature changed the second Monday in October from Columbus Day to Native American Day in 1989.

This year, Native Americans have something else to celebrate - a new pair of shoes from Nike designed to address health and lifestyle challenges in the Native community. the Air Native N7.

While acknowledging that the Air Native N7 shoe is a bit of marketing genius by Nike that garnered plenty of free publicity for its brand name, we think the athletic shoe company deserves recognition for its positive efforts to address obesity, diabetes and other health issues among Native Americans. Nike has had its share of bad publicity in the past for producing shoes with sweatshop labor and low wages in Third World countries.

Citing its own field research that indicates many Native people have a wider and taller than average foot, the Air Native N7 is a wide shoe with a bigger toe box. This led some of our Native acquaintenances to joke, with characteristic humor, that Nike thinks they're related to the mythical Bigfoot, even while they expressed a positive reaction to the customized shoe.

Like many in his community, Bruce Long Fox was excited that a major retailer identified a Native American market. "Manufacturers don't often customize to us. That's refreshing and exciting," he said.

Nike sells the shoes mainly to tribal wellness programs, reservation schools and diabetes education clinics, with all profits going to oranizations and efforts to fight the growing epidemic of obesity that has led to skyrocketing rates of Type 2 diabetes in the Native community.

Native Americans are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes than whites, and more likely to die of it, too. Exercise and weight loss can help control it. Designed with fewer seams and a thicker sock liner, Nike hopes the shoes will encourage more people to get active, while reducing the number of foot problems associated with diabetes that can sometimes lead to amputations.

We're taking Nike at their word that this shoe is a sincere effort on their part to improve the health and lives of America's indigenous people. Native Americans should hold the company to that commitment for seven generations to come.