Jenny Mackenzie, filmmaker and mother of a child with diabetes, has always believed in the power of social change through documentary story telling. “When our 4-year-old daughter, Lizzie, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 10 years ago, she was the 3rd generation in our family to have type 1 diabetes,” she says.
Jenny knew it was time to tell her story of diabetes. As she started researching the idea, she stumbled upon a home video of the hospital when Lizzie was diagnosed. With that inspiration, she decided to build a film around a child’s perspective on life with diabetes. The more she dove into the research, the more concerned she became about the rise of type 2 diabetes in children and teens. She realized the film, Sugar Babies, had to be about both types of diabetes.
Sugar Babies examines the public heath epidemic of diabetic children in America. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are on the rise and threaten to become a healthcare crisis in the next decade. The film exposes the spiraling epidemics through five real-life stories, including Jenny’s family. Itreveals the challenges and solutions that are within our control, and what we can do to take back the health of our next generation.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/37214967[/vimeo]
Jenny says the biggest lesson she’s learned while making this film is that we need to look out for each other – it takes a village to raise healthy children. Whether kids have type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes or no diabetes, we need to give them the tools they need to live long, healthy lives. Even though we don’t yet have a cure for type 1 diabetes, Jenny says she’s learned the food we put on the end of our forks impacts us much more than she ever understood.
For more information go to: http://www.sugarbabiesthemovie.com
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