1.5 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes every year. Leading the race is 15.1% of American Indians/Alaskan Natives and falling close behind is 12.7% of Blacks. Charles Mattocks is included with that 12.7%. As the nephew of Bob Marley, Charles knew that he had a legacy to fulfill. Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, Charles saw a need to not only educate and save his own life but the lives of others who also needed a voice. Over the past few years, Charles has become a major advocate for diabetes and other pressing conditions. He’s also a published author with the American Diabetes Association and has been named a Blue Circle Champion for the International Diabetes Association.
Going on to create and direct the first ever diabetes reality docu-series, Reversed, in which Season 2 set to premiere Summer 2019, his production company has taken a focus on producing captivating films and tv series based on health and wellness.
Here’s more about the show and his personal journey with diabetes:
BlackDoctor.org (BDO): Tell me about your first thoughts when you personally were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and how it’s gone on the shape your career today?
Charles Mattocks (CM): Well, it was something that was terrifying. I think that is one of the reasons that took me on this whole diabetes advocacy and diabetes journey. Because I thought a lot of people are like me. I was initially diagnosed with type 2 diabetes by a weekend doctor and he wanted to give me medication based on a single finger prick. Now, if you really test diabetes, you’re supposed to do a workup of the blood to see your A1C, not based on a finger prick.
You can definitely judge some things based on that but I didn’t know how high it was, it could’ve been 190 but I had just eaten a bunch of food, drank sugary things, carbs and starch. So, you know you’re really supposed to do a full workup of blood before you just try and prescribe someone with medication that’s not even your patient.
It was definitely a wake-up call and it was something that gave me purpose and vision. Because you know being the nephew of Bob Marley, coming from that lineage, I knew I wanted to do something special out here even though I didn’t know exactly what it was. But it wasn’t until I was diagnosed where I kind of said, “Wow this should be how I help and give back and change lives.”
Not only my life but others lives. So, stepping into diabetes and seeing the landscape, seeing what was going on and seeing medical companies, drug companies, fast food companies and a full circle of things made me say, “You know what, I need to be a voice. I need to step up to leave my legacy in this space.” So, realizing that, I thought that I could transfer over and do a lot of what I was doing before and really push diabetes and make a good run of it.
You May Also Like
BDO: Congratulations on your second season of Reversed! The show is centered around living with and managing diabetes but why the name “Reversed” as the title of the show?
CM: Well, number one, the key is not “reversing” your diabetes. It’s about reversing the person. We can’t reverse diabetes, you can reverse a negative outcome of diabetes. So, when we say reversed it's about changing the fuel and progression that could be a negative progression. That doesn’t mean you’re going to totally get rid of diabetes, but what someone can do isget their health aligned with their blood sugars, cholesterol, and get their hypertension under control.
So, it’s not just diabetes we’re focusing on. It’s hypertension, cholesterol, all those factors can be lowered to change your life. So, it’s really not about reversing diabetes at all, it’s about reversing the person. Once you reverse the person, then all of those things fall into line.
BDO: Just at a glance, Reversed seems to be a very compelling and enlightening journey. What was your main mission when the initial thought came to you to put this experience together?
CM: Diabetes in the medical industry can be very complicated. I didn’t know what a dietitian was or knew what diabetes educators did. I didn’t know anything about that. I didn’t know what an endocrinologist was, so I thought, you know what the best thing that I can do is put all these people in a house so that the participants not only visiting but the people watching would be able to understand all the facets of care for diabetes.
So, they would able to see an endocrinologist, a dietician, a diabetes educator, people that were in the field. They would be able to talk to them and get the information that they needed, so they wouldn’t have to go months and months of basically meeting with one person here and one person there, not seeing a nutritionist, because most people just get medication and that’s it and they go about their business. So, being able to bring all those people in there was great.
The key focus was actually the mental and emotional state because we have to be able to make those changes mentally before we can even do them physically. If you’re not emotionally and mentally prepared, you’re not going to stick to something. We wanted to make sure these people were sticking to it. They had to find out their “why” to begin their health journey.
BDO: What were some of the top hurdles that you consistently saw that each participant had to overcome first?
CM: They had to realize that the space that they were in was nota good one. I don’t think any of them saw a dire situation. For instance, you look at Roger who had a leg amputated and he had toes amputated. I don’t think he ever said to himself, “You know what if I don’t get this together, I’m going to die.” I don’t think any of them thought that they were in that bad of shape, no matter how bad the situation was.
So, that was the key, is educating them and letting them see you really need to make some changes. So, that was the first thing, also because they didn’t see how serious it was. I think some of them thought this would be a nice vacation in Jamaica and they could come out there and eat good food and lay on the beach. So, another hurdle was trying to get them to change their mindset to let them understand the therapy of what diabetes can do and that there is hope if you make simple changes.
BDO: You mention Jamaica as the location which looks to be very tropical, open and amazing. Was there any significance of the surrounding nature aspect and the participants managing their diabetes?
CM: Well, me being from Jamaica, I wanted to take them outside of their regular environment and outside of any factors that could cause them to stumble. Because if you’re working with someone but yet they go home to their husbands and wives cooking up some bad food, you didn’t have a chance to instill those positive things.
And I also wanted them to be in a tropical place that could take their mind off any of their issues, relationships, whatever it may be, just to go and have some peace. I also wanted them around some fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, because a lot of us don’t change up our diets. Most of us eat the same things over and over again, some chicken, some steak, maybe some fish if you’re lucky and a little bit of salad. A lot of people don’t use different herbs and spices. I wanted them to experience different foods and have some fun to get their mind off certain things and focus on healing.
BDO: When it comes to the show and diabetes what where some of the important physical and medical factors that you felt had to be put in place in order for this experience to actually work?
CM: Number one was the emotional. We brought in psychologists and therapists to really be able to understand any issues that they may be facing, dealing with things even from their past that are keeping them frommaking certain changes in their lives. Then we brought in yoga, meditation and even just basic walking.
Walking is the key to life. A lot of them had issues with certain things so we had to take that into consideration, so it was a lot of personal meditation, group meditation, and some light yoga just to let them see that they had to be physical and do other steps not only in diet change but physical activity. So, even swimming, a lot of them maybe couldn’t walk to workout but they could wade around, move and exercise in the pool.
BDO: All of the participants have a moving story, which stood out to you to have been the biggest challenge, yet made the most significant change?
CM: I think Lisa because of the adversity from her husband. He’s a nice guy but he made it very hard on her as far as her changes. She probably had the furthest to go because she was looking at some disadvantages as she was wheelchair-bound and had a lot of other issues even emotionally that she had to work through. Compared to know, it’s like night and day. She was also very humble, still, till this day she will call me in tears thanking me for saving her life. Lisa’s story was very, very touching to me.
BDO: Were there any challenges that came up during filming that you had to physically or mentally overcome as the creator of the show, host, producer and a type 2 diabetic?
CM: I would say yes, being able to pull this all together as a producer, as a black producer, with little to no help and trying to find funding was and still is a challenge. While you think there are people and companies who would be rushing to be a part of this, you’d be very surprised. It’s a very sad situation that you hope that there would be more companies that would fall in line or healthcare professionals, doctors and the right people would step up to support something like this.
It’s about education and inspiration, the show can touch millions of lives and it can save millions of lives too. You would think that key people would be in line to be a part of this and you find yourself having to go through hoops of fire just to convince a drug company or a healthcare company to be a part of it.
We even as black people need to support each other more and if you are in a position to help, you should. Things like that definitely need to change. We have to work together, it doesn’t make any sense. We as black people could be so powerful if you’d just reach down and pull somebody up. We’re in positions where we can pull somebody up to a right place and there are black people who could be reaching out and saying, “Hey man let’s get behind this” ... but we don’t. Whether it’s a story, somebody that’s doing PR, working in entertainment, everybody needs help to where they’re trying to go. It doesn’t always have to be money attached to it. It could but just, “Hey let me help somebody.”
BDO: What are you hoping viewers will take away from the show Reversed?
CM: I want them to take away that they have to take their life into their hands, their health into their hands. You have to be your own doctor, your own pharmacy, your own advocate. You cannot just rely on going to see the doctor who is going to put prescriptions in our hand. We have to understand what this disease is because I guarantee you almost 9 out of 10 people with diabetes if you ask them to tell you what it was couldn’t tell you what it is. They don’t know the basics of what or why they have diabetes or what is not working correctly.
So, you have to be an advocate, you have to take your life into your hands. What you drink, what you eat, the supplements that you take, because we only have one life and we don’t want to go through this life sick, with bad eyesight or no eyesight, and losing limbs. We want to go through it as healthy as we can. Also, we want to teach our children healthier habits so that they have a chance to have a better future too.
BDO: Now that Reversed, Season 2, has been announced, what can we expect to see in this next season?
CM: Well, we hope to start shooting Season 2 in April. We’ve got some celebrity names attached to it and some celebrity experts so we’re really excited about that. With those names attached, we’re hoping to garner that attention that we know the show deserves.
Once the show gets that attention and people see it, in which a lot of people didn’t see this show due to the network and certain things, this will be the first time a lot of people and especially in the black community are hearing about the show. So, having some black celebrities with diabetes and black experts as a part of the show that are well known will get us where we need to be with publicity and get companies to start coming forth to back us.
Learn more about Charles Mattocks and the show, Reversed, at www.CharlesMattocks.com. For more information on diabetes, visit our Health Conditions page on BlackDoctor.org.
Tia Muhammad, BS, is an award-winning freelance content & media creative, copywriter, blogger, digital designer, and marketing consultant. She owns the boutique content and digital media company, jackieGLDN|studio.
