Bad Sugar Unnatural Causes

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Unnatural Causes…Is inequality making us sick?-Bad Sugar is about two groups of people in Arizona: the Pima and Tohono O’odham Indians that have the highest diabetes rates in the world. Half of the Tohono O’odham adults have Type 2 diabetes and the diabetes rate for children are increasing at an alarming rate. The film begins with a photographer/activist named Terrol D. Johnson taking pictures of his old neighborhood and interviewing people with diabetes. The filmmakers emphasize that the Tohono people used to rely on “beans and wild game, crops that were irrigated by rain and ground water (Fortier, 2008).” This way of living kept them healthy for a long time. However, this was no longer the case. Many of these foods were replaced by white…show more content…
Johnson is speaking to a Tohono Elder about how her feelings towards diabetes. She indicates that she is hopeful and more careful about her dietary sugar intake. The film then changes its focus to the Pima and how they have fought for their water rights for hundreds of years and how recently water is flowing down Gila River again. The Water Rights Act passed to provide the Pima the water and resources they needed to build their farms and community. The film closes with that diabetes is an epidemic issue and measures should be taken to prevent the disease and not just for treatment of the disease. If more actions towards to prevent diabetes are performed, this may reduce the incidence rates of diabetes. PART 2: Relate this film to at least 2 readings assigned this…show more content…
We are able to see the relationship between socioeconomic status and poor diet. In Unnatural Causes- Bad Sugar, when the US military provided free food to the Native Americans, it seemed like a good gesture. But the food that was provided, was low in nutritional value and put many of the Native Americans at greater risk for illnesses including diabetes. The Native Americans thought the free food was beneficial because they were unable to grow crops and lacked water supply. They were unaware of what the processed food was doing to them. Also, many of these people lived below poverty line, uneducated and were unemployed. So many of them lived a sedentary lifestyle. They consumed many empty calories and did not “burn” them off, which jeopardized their
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