As I mentioned earlier, I work in a department of 21 people. Candy is out all the time. It's a trigger for me, but after making a few brief complaints early on, I stopped. Just because it's a problem for me, doesn't mean its a problem for everyone else. I get it.
Some of my co-workers eat incredibly healthy food, too many do not. It's hard for me because I care about them.
Earlier this year, I posted information on the outside wall of my cubicle on how damaging industrial seed oils are to the body. I was unprepared for the reaction I got. Almost no reaction, silence. One staff member agreed and made the effort to walk over to my cubicle and tell me, which was really nice. Another removed the information, and I assume copied or read it, then returned it, yet didn't comment. And the next day, I heard one conversation that seemed likely was generated by the information, but that was about it.
I was really surprised how defensive we are around information related to food.
Yet everyday, I hear co-workers discussing food in the context of how good a recipe they made was or perhaps a meal at a restaurant. It seems that discussing food, healthy or unhealthy, is for the most part okay, but anything else is off limits.
November 14th is World Diabetes Day, and the month of November is Diabetes Awareness Month in the US, not sure about elsewhere.
I'm thinking about sharing information on diabetes, what it is, how to know if you have diabetes, pre-diabetes, or pre-pre-diabetes, understanding the importance of tracking your numbers over time on your comprehensive metabolic panel and lipid panel (US), how to move into action if your lab test results begin trending up, and perhaps what I've learned over the last 30 years about blood glucose dysregulation, and how important it is to catch it early and make appropriate lifestyle changes.
But I don't know...is there a way to initiate this conversation without generating defensiveness? Not sure. I think the only way to do this is to focus the most attention to how to be proactive around the issues of food and exercise.
It's hard tackling this topic without some mention of the dark side of the food and drug industries. Addiction is profitable, and it's beginning to look like it's going to eventually bankrupt countries.
Addiction is such an important topic. I had no idea the extent that processed foods are addictive until I was re-diagnosed with T2DM, dumped most of the processed foods, and began eating a real, whole food diet. It's been quite the education. But realistically, who has thousands of hours to learn what we have here and elsewhere? I was able to do so only because I was between jobs for almost 2 years and while I do work now, it's only part-time. For those who work full-time, it's not so easy.