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Kitzya Camacho

Claire Bagley

HLTH 1020

July 19, 2019

Improving our health.

The documentary I chose to talk about is called Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead directed by Joe

Cross and Kurt Engfehr. The documentary was produced and released on April 1, 2010 in the

United States. The documentary lasts an hour and thirty seven minutes. (Summary of joe cross) I

chose this documentary because anyone can relate to Joe Cross; everyone can get sick and be

close to death if they don’t take care of their health just like Joe didn’t. Many of us have been

there, sick to the point where we have to be hospitalized. This documentary helps a lot in making

you understand how we should take care of ourselves to avoid those kinds of problems, that is

why I thought it would be interesting to watch this documentary and learn from it.

Joe Cross is an Australian and the principal character in this documentary. After being

diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, a chronic rash in his case, he decides to start a journey of

sixty days fasting and not eating anything except for natural juices. The reason he decided to do

juicing instead of eating raw vegetables and fruits was because, by drinking natural juices it is

easier to get more micronutrients in your system. Joe Cross said “If the body can heal on the

outside, why can’t it heal on the inside?” and that quote motivated him to continue with his

journey. He decided to do this while traveling to the United States to find a cure for himself. He

would hang out in New York for thirty days and travel around the United States the remaining

thirty. He did not have a good nutrition background; he had always been focusing on his wealth
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instead of his health, and while he travelled interviewing people on the streets and goes to the

nutritionist and doctors he learns about nutrition. After he finished his journey he continued

consuming more vegetables and fruits, and also got rid of his autoimmune disease, and didn’t

have to take anymore pills—prednisone to be exact, which is a steroid associated with

inflammation

Everything we learn in this documentary is still applicable, because health is necessary

for survival and science only develops instead of cancelling all of the ideas. Both the

documentary and course textbook discuss how we should take care of ourselves by maintaining a

healthy body and consuming macronutrients and micronutrients. In the documentary the dietitian

Stacy Keneddy said that “Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals”, and we can find these

micronutrients in vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and beans and macronutrients include everything

else. The book talks deeper about this, telling us that macronutrients are lipids, carbohydrates,

fiber, water and protein and these nutrients are required in larger amounts than micronutrients,

something that they didn’t clarify in the documentary. Another thing that the book and this

documentary had in common was that they both talked about how the American diet contains too

many calories, having a half plate of protein and the other half of carbohydrates, instead of

balancing it out with vegetables and fruits, more nutrient-dense options. In the book we have

more details; it says that this leads to obesity if you are getting a higher intake of calories than

you require and not burning them down. To prevent obesity, the correct thing to do is balance

calorie intake with calorie output, that way we can maintain a healthy weight and a healthy body

preventing going to the doctor. According to the documentary processing, cooking and heating

damages the food and in the book we refer to this as to denature. Denaturing happens when you

start cooking your food and the heat causes the unfolding of the polypeptide chains of protein.
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In the documentary I learned new things like liquid its more rapidly absorbed, and that is

why juicing is an easier way to get a potent source of micronutrients. Also, I learned that normal

juice from a grocery store, whether it contains added sugar or not, still has been really processed

and is nothing like the natural fruit or vegetable juices that one can make at home. But the thing

that impacted me the most was how just by consuming enough or only vegetables and fruits one

can save one’s life, and stop an autoimmune disease and taking any more pills, just like Joe

Cross did.

I would apply and incorporate everything I learned from this documentary to my life,

because it would make my life easier to just try to be healthy and learn from his mistakes, instead

of risking myself getting sick and then having to constantly deal with any type of disease. As

time passes not taking care of yourself will also be a lot more expensive than just eating healthy,

and I say this because people think eating healthy is more expensive. But in the long run if you

don’t take care of yourself you will be expending all of your money in hospitals and medicine.

By eating healthy you also avoid a lot of diseases, even cancer. For example, the phytochemicals

in fruits and vegetables can help you avoid a lot of types of cancer. I will also be starting to do

juicing because we learned that is the easier way to get your vitamins and minerals and since is

liquid it is easier to absorb the nutrients.

Works Cited
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“Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (2010).” Tubi, 1 Jan. 2010,

tubitv.com/movies/15619/fat_sick_and_nearly_dead?utm_source=google-

feed&tracking=google-feed.

Wardlaw, Gordon. Contemporary Nutrition. Mcgraw-Hill Education, 2015.