If someone else suggests it's all my fault...

[lesleyr284]

Apologies for repeating what so many others have said, but at this moment I am so angry and I have absolutely no one to share with!

I feel like admitting to being diabetic is becomming a bit like admitting to being a fat lazy slob who does nothing but stuff mars bars and Big Macs all day. I walk my kids to school, ride bikes with them at the weekend, drink green tea in Costa whilst the rest stuff chocolate tiffins... I go to the gym...

I apologise for the rant... I've just come back from a meeting where I was basically told to get off my backside and get active as that was clearly the reason I have diabetes. Yesterday it was because I have a sugar addiction and spent my life eating the wrong foods.

Now, I can understand my son's friend asking me if being fat was why I have diabetes. (I have a BMI of 29 - about 2 stone overweight) He's ten and only knows what he sees on the TV and hears in the school... There's a huge drive to get them eating healthy at school so obviously threatening them with some diseases like diabetes if they eat chips seemed to be a good idea!!! And now, because word is getting out that I'm diabetic, there's an army of ten year olds who think Connor's mum spends all day in the chip shop...

I remember the first time I admitted I had diabetes to a virtual stranger... I could have been telling them I had the plague. It seems to me that more and more people are starting to think that diabetes is ALWAYS preventable. If you get it, it's because you did something wrong. Or is just where I am and the people I am surrounded with?

As I pulled up to collect my son this afternoon, on my bike so the two of us could cycle home, one kid helpfully relayed his father's comments on my condition... 'lazy people get diabetes cos they can't be bothered to cook properly.'

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh... That's better.....

 

[mullaneder]

i totally agree with you if another person says that i have diabetes because i drank coke :evil: never mind the fact that five other family members are diabetic too on the other hand a lot of people have been very supportive too and you are amongst friends here ,

 

[hanadr]

I feel like that too. I am the 3rd or 4th in direct line to develop this. I have never been lazy and always eaten fresh foods.
I am heavy BMI 30, but I am convinced that the link is not simple cause and effect. Why would it be so if the distribution of body fat is so important in diabetes? Apple shapes develop it and pear shapes don't.

 

[ShyGirl]

:sick: :sick:

 

[hanadr]

shygirl
Your health doesn't need to be ****. Do you have other problems?
I'm fitter now than I was 10 years ago. Much fitter than 6 years ago, when I had a stroke.
I can walk up steep hills and even if I puff, I get my breath back quickly. I haven't had any worse illness than a sniffle in 5 years. I'd call that healthy.

 

[ShyGirl]

:sick:

 

[Trinkwasser]

Try being a skinny Type 2 and going undiagnosed for fifty years because you aren't a fat lazy slob

<sigh>

the meeja are terminally clueless and some medics aren't much better, they can only think in stereotypes.

FACT: 20% of Type 2s are not overweight

FACT: 80% of obese people are not diabetic

now what was that about cause and effect again???

As someone said the only thing you did wrong was to choose inappropriate grandparents

 

[lesleyr284]

So true!

:lol:

 

[999sugarbabe]

I hear they are going to tattoo all newborn babies shortly... "Living can damage your health!" :lol:

 

[Grumpy]

I'm asthmatic. So they put me on steroids. So I got fat. And THEN i got diabloodybetes from the steroids. But I can't be bothered to explain that to the sort of person who I KNOW is making the assumption that I sit and drink coke to wash down the doughnuts all day... :evil:

 

[sandymaynard]

Hi lesley,
I have diabeties as have been told, because i was a big baby, so it is all my fault!
Then because i have a chocolate addictation, Oh then cake addiction!
I would like to know how?
Don't eat chocolate at most once a year maybe a square or two!
As for cakes only a small bit at christmas or fiancees birthday!
It really gets to me!
The worst thing is my fiancee's mum has type 2 because of her age, i think she is 72 ish!
She says ....she is diabetic because she eats way too much chocolate and sweets, I agree with that one! she eats so much chocolate!
But me barely touch chocolate sweets etc, I am 33 nearly 34 and got it! I am doing my best to be able to what i can to help my diabeties for as long as poss without pills!
Sandy

 

[lesleyr284]

sandymaynard - I was told it was possibly down to being an underweight, premature baby!!! You can't win, can you??? :roll:

 

[kegstore]

Apparently there IS a statistical correlation between increased birth weight and subsequent diabetes diagnosis. But like many things, there's clearly more to it than just that, and any HCP who suggests it's your fault for overeating probably needs to go back and retrain?! As a banker or a politician maybe? :roll:

 

[Jen&Khaleb]

Loved reading these comments even though my bub is T1. My bub has been diabetic since he was 8 months old and people assume I must of fed him too much or fed him bad food. Mind you, he had barely even started solids. The other usual comment was "would he grow out of it?". One day I did his finger prick test while we were out and I looked up to find every single person staring at us. Doing an insulin injection in the babies room is usually something I explain a little to the person beside me. I hate the looks you can get from people thinking there is some sort of drug issue.

Anyway, I might be a bit sensitive with bub also having Down syndrome (not really obvious to look at) as the comments can be cruel.

What would be the best way to educate the public?

Hope you are all having a good day, Jen x

 

[Trinkwasser]

What would be the best way to educate the public?

For some of them, a lump hammer would not be overkill

 

[lesleyr284]

:lol: :lol:

I would like to see a campaign taking the stigma off diabetes. I know we need to make people aware of diabetes, but all media campaigns I see (or let's get healthy type TV shows) do lump all diabetics together. I so very rarely hear a distinction made between T1 and T2. When you do, there is definite division of sympathy. T1's are blameless, but T2's are all self inflicted and brought in on yourself. With that attitude it's hard to see how the undiagnosed out there would even want to find out, if all they are going to get is a big fat finger pointed at them. My doc points to my waistline as if that is the sole reason I am what I am, failing once again to see the bigger picture.

Diabetes is in my family and when I had my first child I developed gestational diabetes. I was warned that there was a very high chance that as I reached 40, I would develop T2. I was not a fat woman when I got pregnant and I lost most of the baby fat in a reasonable amount of time. I was always a pear shape till I got hyperthyroidism. Then I went from pear to apple. I cannot (have tried) put weight on my hips now. I remember complaining as a 20 year old that my hips were HUGE! I had a 27 inch waist and 40 inch hips!! Now I just would love to have big hips... or at least slip the middle ring down on them...

I went from just in normal weight to very underweight to overweight in a very short space of time and then had thyroid zapped and within 6 months became officially diabetic. What really gets me is that at that time (nearly 3 years ago), I was officially only half a stone overweight. All that's changed now, unfortunately.

 

[Trinkwasser]

What's really annoying is that there is a wealth of information out there, but you have to hunt for it. You couldn't tell if you just read DUK or most other similar sites (at least the ADA have some good papers but they're pretty well hidden)

What's worse is the overhwelming amount of evidence against the Heart Healthy Diet, which blatantly isn't. Yet the less it works the harder they try to impose it.

Again the ADA have backed off some, their Eat More Starch! page is no longer front and centre but is still there, and they are moving glacially slowly in a more sensible direction, recommending fewer carbs and more unsaturated fats, unlike the FSA.

But in general the Authorities are still recommending a diet which causes and worsens Type 2, cardiovascular disease and obesity, then blames the individual when it does exactly what it was always going to <sigh>

 

[lesleyr284]

I have started a nutrition course and asked my tutor why there is a one model for all healthy food plan, which for some people is clearly an unhealthy food plan. Her answer was interesting. It is impossible to present diet info on an individual basis as people vary in their needs, so information is basically presented as a 'for most people this would be good'. Diabetics present a problem in that we are all so different and as we know, react differently to food. She still maintained that a healthy diet for mr non diabetic was basically a good diet for mr diabetic and low carb diets were EVIL. :lol:

So, from what I can see, government health depts like the one model for all because its simpler and politicians don't do complicated very well. :roll:

That goes for media output too. Far far easier to lump us all together and generalise than waste time explaining the condition. Result - the overwhelming attitude of the public that ALL diabetics are fat, lazy slobs who brought it all on themselves...

Oh, was out last night and met a lady with a 7 yr old T1 diabetic. She told me that when he was first diagnosed, her mother in law accused her of causing it by eating the wrong food whilst she was pregnant!!! As if mothers don't feel enough paranoia as it is!!

 

[Dennis]

So, from what I can see, government health depts like the one model for all because its simpler and politicians don't do complicated very well. :roll:

That goes for media output too. Far far easier to lump us all together and generalise than waste time explaining the condition. Result - the overwhelming attitude of the public that ALL diabetics are fat, lazy slobs who brought it all on themselves...

Hi Lesley,

I have a strong suspicion that the government is manipulating the media to its own ends on this one. The last thing the government wants is public condemnation of their NHS agents, the PCTs, preventing diabetics from testing. So the government feeds the media with this rubbish about diabetes being a largely self-inflicted condition. The media may be a lot of things, but intelligent isn't one of them! So they lap it up and without realising it give us all the bad publicity that will prevent us gaining public sympathy and support.

 

[Trinkwasser]

I have started a nutrition course and asked my tutor why there is a one model for all healthy food plan, which for some people is clearly an unhealthy food plan. Her answer was interesting. It is impossible to present diet info on an individual basis as people vary in their needs, so information is basically presented as a 'for most people this would be good'. Diabetics present a problem in that we are all so different and as we know, react differently to food. She still maintained that a healthy diet for mr non diabetic was basically a good diet for mr diabetic and low carb diets were EVIL. :lol:

The problem is that it isn't a good diet for the majority of the rest of the population either. Or at least a very large minority.

I have a strong suspicion that the government is manipulating the media to its own ends on this one. The last thing the government wants is public condemnation of their NHS agents, the PCTs, preventing diabetics from testing. So the government feeds the media with this rubbish about diabetes being a largely self-inflicted condition. The media may be a lot of things, but intelligent isn't one of them! So they lap it up and without realising it give us all the bad publicity that will prevent us gaining public sympathy and support.

I think it's even worse than that, they are trying to remove everyone who can't live on carbs alone from the gene pool. They are presenting the fact that a third of the population WILL become diabetic as a done deal. They are blaming the people who get other cardiovascular diseases and obesity from the Heart Healthy diet for not following it when it's the diet that is expressing the genes.