Beating Diabetes

For the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA), in Manitoba, Type II diabetes in children is a growing health concern. As a result, staff like Rosemary Szabadka, a community health nutritionist, are always looking for new prevention and treatment programs for the condition.

In August 2000, Szabadka was working in the Point Douglas area of inner city Winnipeg. Point Douglas has the city's highest rates of poverty, its highest aboriginal population, and skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes. While Szabadka was reading a story on diabetes prevention aimed at children, she had her lightbulb moment. She'd been looking for ideas for community programs and realized that the basis of the story would make a great play, as it would draw on the aboriginal tradition of the oral tale and would get the information across in a fun, interactive, and informal way. But Szabadka only had the idea – she had no script and no actors.

Putting on a Show

To maximize relevance to the audience, Szabadka felt strongly that the play needed to be put on by aboriginal actors. After a six-month search, she found her troupe at R.B. Russell Vocational high school. But the 16 students, who were predominantly aboriginal, ended up doing more than act. With guidance from their Métis teacher Jay Willman and Szabadka, who took on the role of producer, the students also wrote the script for the play that would be named Make the Right Choice.

From the beginning, Szabadka let the ideas come from the students because she knew these teens could get through to their peers far better than she, a white, middle-class woman in a position of authority. "These are young people age ranged 15 to 20 who live in the inner city – they know what it's like to have the threat of diabetes over their head; they all know somebody who has it."

Szabadka's overall goal was to make the kids in the audience, as well as those putting on the play, aware of how food and activity affected their health. The play the students created consisted of several vignettes and was a half-hour long – the usual time-span of a cartoon or sitcom – so the kids didn't become bored or restless.

The script had aboriginal themes but mainly addressed problems faced by inner city kids. One scene showed a young girl who is hungry and bored and surrounded on both sides – on one side by her inner city friends, asking her to get some junk food at the local convenience store, and on the other by aboriginal kids from the past, who are living a traditional, healthier, and more active lifestyle, asking her to come pick berries with them and eat some moose meat.

In another scene, the idea of fast food is turned around by showing a race between a giant apple and a giant pack of French fries to see which really is fastest. Of course, the apple, which needs no preparation, wins. R.B. Russell also used familiar television genres to make their point. In one scene, set up like a game show and called "What's Going to Happen to Your Body," contestants bid for a healthy life.

The play was followed by an hour-long interactive group discussion session to get the audience to come up with some of their own ideas. The teens who put on the play, and who acted as facilitators for the groups, discussed questions such as "What can you do to eat healthy?" Because the 1,500 kids who watched the play were directly involved in those discussion sessions, many of them were still talking about it more than a year later.

Often, when children hear discussion about healthy eating, they switch off, but this time they didn't. Why? Sabadka believes it's because they weren't being preached to by adults. The teens who put on the play were a little older than their audience of Grade 4 to 6 kids, and, therefore, had that "cool factor."

Many Rewards

Szabadka hopes the generation she's targeting will be able to stop the cycle of obesity and diabetes. The 16 kids at R.B. Russell have been rewarded by their community (they won the Manitoba Aboriginal Youth Achievement Award) and have been featured in the media, including being the subject of a CKY Manitoba Moments documentary. They have toured in two provinces to show other communities how to set up the same program (even offering them the same script). They have had the responsibility of being good role models; they have had the opportunity to be community leaders; and they have learned the most about the impact of diabetes. Health improvement and self esteem improvement all in one.

As she retells her journey with these young people, Szabadaka is tearful at times. Apparently these teens made her cry often when she was working with them. She took place in a sharing circle with them after each rehearsal – and, she admits, she cried during each one. "I'd just look at them and say, 'you don't know how good you are.'"

The Woman with the Ideas When Rosemary Szabadka (who won the Dietitians of Canada and Kraft Speaking of Food and Eating award for Make the Right Choice) has an idea that she's passionate about, the Quebec native makes it work. Like when she had the idea to be a dietician. Szabadka had finished a finance degree at Concordia University in Montreal and had worked for less than a year in Toronto before she decided numbers weren't for her and headed back to McGill in Montreal to study dietetics. Szabadka now works in the Fort Gary area of Winnipeg and is already busy setting up new initiatives. Alphabet Soup, launched in October 2003, is aimed at a younger age group. Involving parents, the program incorporates literacy and nutrition, getting parents and kids to read about food-related topics and to make and eat food together. It'll be interesting to see what she comes up with next.

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