Outraged - Change4life - Complaints

Hi Alba,
Yes I agree with everything you have said regarding change4life. As the parent of a child with tpye 1 it must be very upsetting for you.
There is also another thing to consider, loads of type 2's are not overweight, beer swilling individuals who consume large amounts of junk food and do not exercise. This is the stereotype of a type 2 and it is far from the truth. If this was the case then everyone who follows that lifestyle would be a diabetic. We have forum members here who are underweight and yet still are type 2. My belief is that genetics and stress have a large part to play.

Hope everyone here supports you and will use the links provided by you. Let us know the replies that you get.
Regards, Catherine.

*B*

Prevent cancer - don't grow old :idea: :!:
And if that fails, stop treating infectious diseases :roll:

5.5 Recommendations for preventing cancer
5.5.1 Background
..... The relative importance of cancers as a cause of death is increasing, mostly because of the increasing proportion of people who are old, and also in part because of reductions in mortality from some other causes, especially infectious diseases.....

DIET, NUTRITION AND THE PREVENTION OF CHRONIC DISEASES (WHO Report.)

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As a 70 y-o (nearly) I looked up the activities in "My Local Area." I'm not into rugby, nor football, & indoor tennis is very expensive, so I thought I would try walking.

The nearest is Milton Keynes (37 miles) & next nearest Southampton at 60 miles :evil:

Hana - you are missing a trick. Reading is "only" 25 miles.

They (Ealing PTC) did run :wink: health walks for diabetic & heart patients for a year or so, gathering 20-30 walkers. They abandoned them. I know Hillingdon (3 miles) run them still, across a new country park.

Alba37 said:

Has anyone seen the new massive Department of Health Campaign Change4life TV, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AH8zClozUV8, website http://www.nhs.uk/Change4Life/Pages/default.aspx or newspaper ads :?:

You may be horrified that they do not stipulate Type 2, when they talk about Diabetes, and are leading the general public, once again, to believe Type 1 could be avoided, by a healthy diet and change of lifestyle. They also lead people to believe Type 1's have diabetes because they have had unhealthy diets and lifestyles.

Type 1's have enough to deal with without misleading the public by a massive ad campaign. If you feel strongly about this misleading ad, please consider complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority

We are having to listen again to how lifes are shortened by a condition there is no way we could avoid, and this is terribly upsetting especially for children. This advert is potentially psychologically damaging to the 20,000Type 1 children in the UK.

Ways to complain:

Online to the Advertising Standards Authority - http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_compla ... ints_form/

Phoning Change4life directly - 0300 123 4567

Department of Health - Email Chief Medical Officer - CMOweb@dh.gsi.gov

Email Diabetes UK, supporters of this campaign - info@diabetes.org.uk

Your own MP - Write to Them - http://www.writetothem.com/

You can leave comments on DUK's face book wall - http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2 ... topic=6289

Please complain, every voice counts.

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Can we please keep this thread on the original subject as above.

sugarless sue said:

Can we please keep this thread on the original subject as above.

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Sorry Sue, but I was looking at the background to the campaign. My complaint is that the information is vague & misleading. You have to look at an awful lot of links without getting positive advice.

Phoning Change4life directly - 0300 123 4567

I phoned Nicola & had a chat. Its all very vague - we're all different - what works for me won't work for everybody .... she did offer to try to find some nearer walking clubs. She even agreed that not getting old was not a good way to prevent cancer. :evil:

I've registered & I shall get my info pack.

Alba tried to Chief Med Officer email addy, spelt correctly but it was sent back, are you sure its correct ??

Dave p

I'm sure that sometimes I must be one a different planet to most, or as a diabetic I've hardened in many ways!

I've seen the change for life adverts on several occassions now....

And I find then as a whole to be pretty good, as the explain the difference to what we used to do and how activity and how our activity has slowly changed over the years and how these changes might bite us on the bum! It's tries to encourage healthy eating and plenty of exercise which I feel is good... It also highlights the hiden dangers of a lot of the processed foods that we take for granted!

I think that sometimes, we are the best critics, by this I mean that we are actually watching these adverts with a different perspective and knowledge that most of the general population that it is being aimed at!

I know that I didn't read into the mention of diabetes as a negitive, but there again I've never had any one assume that it was my own fault that I've got T1 diabetes... And yes I do know that the T2's have in recent years taken a unfair bashing off the media concerning, weight and diabetes, and this side of things should be addressed to put this matter right, as in the in most cases of T2 diabetes it's a genetic issuse and not a weight issuse that has casued the diabetes...

AS to the diet they are promoting, I think that the 'low fat' they are really encouraging, is changing yor eating habbit to a less processed type of eating, which would actually cut back on the bad fats that we consum, as these are hidden in a lot of the 'junk' and highly processed type foods that we consume... Such as crips, biscutes... There are even orange juices that have hydrated vegetable oil to stablised it eek...

And exercise is so important in many ways for a healthy life...

jopar said:

AS to the diet they are promoting, I think that the 'low fat' they are really encouraging, is changing yor eating habbit to a less processed type of eating, which would actually cut back on the bad fats that we consum, as these are hidden in a lot of the 'junk' and highly processed type foods that we consume...

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From the Change4life website ....

Myth 8 : Processed foods are not as healthy for me as fresh foods.

In some cases this is true, but a lot of processed foods are just as healthy, and sometimes even more healthy than fresh foods. This all depends on how they are processed.

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The information is fantastic (& I mean fantastic.)

We will need a lot of personal research to sort the wheat from the chaff in their disinformation. I see confusion reigning. And I have no intention of driving 37 miles to my nearest walking club in Milton Keynes. I don't see those who really need help getting it from the campaign.

What about the 75% of obese and overweight people who don't develop T2 and the thin ones who do?
that Ad annoys me too.

Any initiative that seeks to educate, inform and improve the nation's health has to be welcomed of course. But I see no evidence of any change in the thinking that has underpinned the increase in diabetes and obesity over the last 40 years.

Public enemy #1 is still dietary fat, apparently. What is the most likely outcome of that advice? That the masses suddenly take to cooking and eating lots of fresh vegetables instead, or that the supermarket shelves fill with yet more low-fat-high-carbohydrate rubbish?

The general message seems to be eat less and exercise more. Hardly very new and since it didn't work before, extremely unlikely to succeed now.

Not that I'm a pessimist or anything.

All the best,

fergus

The very simple message that needs to be stated is:

Cut your carb consumption - sweets, cakes, breakfast cereals, potatoes, rice, pasta, pizza, bread, sugary drinks, etc, replacing them with protein & veg, & get more exercise.

The message is NOT clear with respect to food. Its confusing.

In the olden days, my father (Lloyd George (my mother was Doris Day)) taught nature study & health & diet matters at a junior school. He included fats in the major food groups, as being important to slow digestion & thus gain maximum benefit from the food. [He did have an ulcer from war-time stress, but when (at 63) he went to hospital for a check, the consultant carefully checked his age, as he wa expecting to see an old man. Healthy living, gardening, home-grown veg & chickens & eggs, did not protect him from a brain tumour. He was fit & strong, bought a sailing boat in February, & died 6 weeks later.] My mother was an excellent cook, so that cheaper, fatty cuts of meat became very acceptable, even though I was a "Jack Spratt."

Alba37 said:

Thanks Catherine.

Yes, I quite agree re: Type 2 also. I've been discussing this campaign a lot recently, and I was just saying yesterday, my son's grandad is 1 of 11 brothers and sisters. All Type 2, and only a couple of the sisters could be considered over weight. They are all outdoor, healthy eating, Mediterranean’s.

I am type 2 also, but my weight could have played a part in my diabetes (ekk!)

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When I saw your first response I thought "the propaganda is working!"

My son and I attend the same diabetes clinic, which is normally full of older Type 2's, it makes me feel young and my son feel awful! I can honestly say less than half could be classed as slightly overweight and very few obese. I think as a parent I think of my son before myself, and hadn't quite got round to the anger over the campaign's message regading T2's fully yet. My son has said so many times people have said to him you must have been very fat before to have diabetes, this campaign is adding fuel to the little (inaccuarate) knowledge the public have about diabetes.

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When a skinny active friend was diagnosed with Type 2 his doctor by way of apology for failing to diagnose him sooner took him into the waiting room "to show him the elephants" as he put it

HOWEVER the messages are still not getting through that insulin resistance is the *cause* of both Type 2 diabetes and associated conditions, and overweight (someone needs to give the copywriters some simple educations in statistics, 80% of overweight people are NOT diabetic, 20% of Type 2s are NOT overweight, there may be some correlation but NOT causality) and that it's the excess CARBS in the diet that cause these conditions

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better

My husband must out-weight me by about 7 stone yet he is not diabetic(yet).He is also a carb eater and very inactive.

All contacts have been called/ emailed! The DoH won't know what's hit them! I was having probs emailing CMO too, but then realised somehow I'd missed off the .uk part at the end of the address!! Oooops!

Type1 & Type2 join together & get the general public (& the Doh!!) educated about the two types- it's the pure ignorance of the conditions causing the problem, not the conditions themselves

Have signed the online petition! It's great, please have a look & sign it http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/change4life/