Lamest Comic Book Ever Teaches Latinos That Diabetes Isn't So Sweet
The USC School of Pharmacy has come out with a comic book about diabetes that’s just about as exciting as you can expect a comic book by the USC School of Pharmacy about diabetes to be:
“No, Ramon, you know better than that. Insulin doesn’t cause blindness. Your brother’s diabetes has been out of control for years… because he didn’t take care of himself. I’m worried about you, too,” Julia tells her overweight husband.
Julia and Ramon, portrayed in dramatic black-and-white photos, are the main characters in Sweet Temptations, a fotonovela produced by the USC School of Pharmacy to educate the Spanish-speaking community about diabetes by dispelling common myths and promoting lifestyle choices that positively affect the disease.
Oh the drama!
“As pharmacists, one of our roles in the community is to educate our patients about disease prevention and the care of their disease, and to improve compliance so that they may achieve a positive health outcome. Diabetes strikes Latino Americans at one-and-a-half times the rate that it strikes the rest of the population. We’re trying to change the course of this disease by getting people to take care of themselves,” says Melvin F. Baron, associate professor at the School of Pharmacy, who served as project director for the fotonovela.
Baron, who previously directed a fotonovela on folic acid, recognizes that the medium can make a big difference in the impact of a message. He worked with focus groups that identified the fotonovela - a photo comic book punctuated with soap opera themes - as a popular format that is familiar to the Latino community.
Oh snap, folic acid? That’s more exciting than all the times Maggie and Hopey totally hooked up.
No Laughing Matter [LA Downtown News]
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- Managing Editor
Daniel Mauser
- Editor
Cindy Casares
- Associate Editor
Alex Alvarez
- Contributing Editors
Gabriel Caro - Camilla Rowan
- Video Editor
Marcelo Cunning
Everyone knows the real heroes are Kaliman and El Santo.
Posted by Diego | January 07, 2008
Wait. What? They named that thing Sweet Temptations? Lame.
They should have named it “La Virgen Hates Diabetes.” Now that would have caught my attention.
Posted by Latin_Princess | January 07, 2008
hey. i give them credit for trying to find a way to get less educated latinos to read so that they get the facts somehow.
Posted by mare | January 07, 2008
yes..yes…that is bad.
And yes, the real hero’s are Kaliman and Santo, with Condorito being the funnier of all 3
oh and what about that el mil chistes guy?
Posted by sir jorge | January 07, 2008
Don’t forget to credit artist Roy Lichtenstein for the fotonovella-like image, which is apparently NOT from “Sweet Temptations” but which was most likely lifted by him from some other ancient melodramatic kitsch made by some other uncredited artist in the 1960s. Oh so meta.
Posted by Gwen D | January 07, 2008
i remember something like this being handed out to us kids in ESL class but it was about safe sex…i don’t remember much about it except it took mainly took place in a car
Posted by andar_de_pelo_suelto | January 07, 2008
I think of diabetes as my Latino birthright. Right along with my saddle bags.
Posted by La Cindy | January 08, 2008
I will take your comments as being sarcastic… and you probably never got your hands on a real copy of the fotonovela for you to be so critical about it. By the way, this fotonovela was given to adults to evaluate the content (the fotonovela is in english and spanish) and they were given a pre and post questionnaire… their knowledge on diabetes improved significantly after having read the fotonovela…. if that isn’t a novel way of reaching a population that is often ignored by public health efforts, then I don’t know what is. They also were excited about sharing it with a family member who has diabetes. Before you are so critical and quick to bash the efforts of people who are working to get relevant health information to underserved populations, do your research. Just because it comes from a University, doesn’t mean it’s not good enough for our communities.
Posted by ana | October 01, 2008