“Diabetes Is Not Our Way” — Cheyenne River Prevention Campaign
Published in Indian Country Today in 2013. For more on topics like this, see my book, American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle....
The Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP)
has just fielded a diabetes awareness and prevention campaign. The
project includes a 30-minute video called “Diabetes Is Not Our Way”; 10 short
films featuring prominent community members, collectively referred to as “Indigenous
Perspectives”; and three public service announcements for television and online
use.
The media materials are suitable for any
Native community, said CRYP executive director Julie Garreau: “We need to share
information and learn from each other to fight this latest threat to our long-term
health and well-being.”
CRYP diabetes educator John Finn calls diabetes
“a true epidemic” in Native America and notes that its onset is skewing ever younger
in tribal communities. The poor-quality federal food program, inadequate health
care and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle have taken a toll, according to Finn.
He observes that many of Cheyenne River’s children already have conditions more
typical of elderly patients, including elevated blood pressure, arterial
plaque, enlarged hearts and the like. “These children are at tremendous risk,” said
Finn.
On a recent chilly winter afternoon,
Cheyenne River children arrived at the center. Teens in sweatshirts and puffy
parkas took carrot sticks and apple slices from a platter as they signed up for
the basketball tournament Eagle Hunter was supervising. In an adjoining building,
4- to 12-year-olds colored and painted with the cadre of volunteers the center
welcomes from across the United States and around the world. Earlier, they’d
played tag in the center’s gym and later would scamper around the new fitness
center, with its elliptical
machines, stationary bikes, treadmills and weight-lifting equipment.
Over the summer and fall, the little ones
plant and harvest in the center’s two-acre garden, making them experts on all matters
fruit and veggie. When I asked about favorites, Matthew Bobtail Bear, 7, quickly
declared carrots the best vegetable; Rosie White Mountain, 11, voted for
raspberries (“watch out for bees when you’re picking them!”); Angel White
Mountain, 7, said she loved watermelon; and Rhaiyan Tomko, 12, proclaimed the ne plus ultra of fresh, modern cooking: “Our
spaghetti sauce is made with real tomatoes!”
Meanwhile, Alyson Potter, 4, scrutinized
my red-and-white Indian Country Today
Media Network badge. “P-R-E-S-S,” she said, firmly tapping each letter. “Press!” Alyson is shown left, with her dad, CRYP youth programs
assistant Anthony Potter.
Most people—not just children—have gotten
the message that eating fruits and vegetables is important, agreed LeBeau, who
is the picture of health and just climbed Bear Butte for her 93rd
birthday. “It’s soda pop and junk food—all those terrible things added into the
good diet—that undermines it and does the harm,” she said. “You can see cases
of soda pop—mountains of them— piled high in the aisles of our grocery store. The
idea that someone would sell something so destructive to a fellow tribal
member—it’s criminal!”
CRYP is eager to share its diabetes-prevention
materials, which were funded by the Diabetes Action Research and Education
Foundation and the Lowenstein Foundation; Seventh Generation Fund for Indian
Development filmed the segments. View the segments on the group’s website, lakotayouth.org, and on the YouTube
channel, youtube.co/user/CheyenneRiverYP.
Text and photographs c. Stephanie Woodard.