Native American Public Telecommunications, Inc. (NAPT) proudly announces the release of a new documentary that shows the challenges of overcoming Type II Diabetes and poor diet amidst the poverty of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Good Meat captures the real-time, personal weight loss battle of one Oglala Lakota man, Beau LeBeau. Once a star athlete in his community, he struggles to shed the pounds from his 333-pound frame in an unsupportive environment.
“The scale of obesity among Native Americans is epidemic. I would say that over 50-percent of my Lakota patients have diabetes already. Life expectancy on our Reservation in South Dakota is around the age of 50, whereas nationally it’s around 70 to 80-years-old,” commented Kevin Weiland, M.D., LeBeau’s physician.
After losing his mother in an untimely death from cancer and diabetes, LeBeau seeks wellness supervision and motivation from primary care physician Dr. Weiland and nutritionist Kibbe Conti (Oglala Lakota). Together, they build a routine exercise plan and diet that is centered around bison (buffalo)—a traditional indigenous food high in protein and low in fat. Surrounded by the consequences of the disease, LeBeau begins to also adopt other Native foods such as Hidatsa corn, chokecherries, prairie turnips and tea. Despite the Oglala Lakota Tribe having wild herds of buffalo, LeBeau must drive long distances to purchase the bison, fresh fruits and vegetables that he can afford due to the lack of means of expanding the herds to provide food for the Tribe on the modern Reservation.
“Imagine living in the middle of a deadly epidemic, like smallpox or measles, that ravages a community, but the people have become so accustomed to its presence among them that it is as if people stop paying attention to the matter. That’s the situation I faced living next to the Lakota Nation at Pine Ridge. You can see the epidemic, but no one ever quantified it, or put a face to it,” stated Sam Hurst, writer and director of Good Meat.
NAPT invites you to explore the culture of the modern Reservation by following LeBeau on his weight loss journey. While he sheds dozens of pounds almost immediately, he quickly realizes the difficulty of eating healthy in a dysfunctional food economy that makes his health problems seem almost inevitable—particularly with the naysayers on the Reservation about his new lifestyle. This tension between LeBeau’s aspirations and real-world limitations make Good Meat a compelling and though-provoking documentary of today’s health issues that plague many rural areas nationwide.
Funding for Good Meat: Major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding provided by the National Buffalo Foundation and the Black Hills Surgery Center.
For more information visit online at visionmaker.org.