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Perception of diabetes in the media

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will614101

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Hi!

My name is Will and I’m currently studying Product Design at Nottingham Trent University. I’m doing a personal design project in which I am looking at empowering people living with Type 2 diabetes.

I am currently in the research phase so I am trying to understand what it’s like living with Type 2 diabetes in the long-term. I am particularly interested in how people feel the media portray diabetes and how friends, family and strangers perceive it. I would like to understand the highs and lows in the everyday life living with Type 2 diabetes.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and I will keep the forum updated with my progress.

Thanks!
 
The media and strangers see us all as having a self inflicted disease because we are all obese, lazy, and stuff ourselves with take-a-ways, pies, cakes, crisps and so forth whilst vegetating on our sofas all day and all evening in front of the TV. It is our own fault, basically. Imagine how that makes us all feel.

How do people see us? I met up with an old college friend last year who I hadn't seen for 30 years. I mentioned I had T2. She looked amazed, and asked if I were sure I was T2 because I wasn't fat enough.

Personally I don't find living with diabetes difficult normally. I am medication free so have no worries about injecting insulin or taking nasty tablets. My personal eating plan is easy, sustainable and sustaining, and enjoyable. I do find it hard work when eating out because of the lack of choice of suitable food. Easy to find vegetarian, vegan, gluten free options. Impossible almost to find low carbohydrate and sugar free.options.

It is frustrating that the NHS do virtually nothing to help us. We are given outdated and frankly dangerous dietary advice about the "Eat Well Plate" as recommended by NICE and therefore by the whole of the NHS. The dietary advice is to eat plenty of starchy carbohydrate at every meal, plenty of fruit, meals such as a jacket potato with baked beans, and low fat everything. It doesn't seem to occur to them that this way of eating is the exact opposite of what we should be eating. We are also told not to test our own glucose levels because it isn't necessary. There won't be one person on this large forum that agrees with that. It is like asking a learner driver to drive without a speedometer and guess. Very shortsighted. So yes, frustrating.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Easy to find vegetarian, vegan, gluten free options.
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This old chestnut! Some ways of eating are just very easily defined. Even on this forum people can't agree with what is low carb so what chance has your local restaurant got?

Media portrayal - We are fat, lazy and stupid. It's a self inflicted condition and we are bankrupting the NHS. For this reason I don't even tell people I have diabetes unless it's medically essential. I am coping ok with type 2 and am not inconvenienced by it.
 
I have seen a few films by which I mean movies where the characters behave in a dangerous way towards diabetics. Finding a man passed out on the floor of his office Keifer Sutherland went to a cupboard, got a whole syringe and injected the man with it. The popped straight up bright eyed and bushy tailed.

This sort of portrayal is fairly common so the lesson is never pass out in public.
 
But anyone with a brain knows that the media is about as real as Michael jacksons nose! The media do it with literally everything, it's not like diabetes is being singled out and targeted..lol

Best take it all with a chuckle, I know I do..
 
Snap!

 
I don't like the way the media generally portrays Type 2 diabetics as lazy overeating slobs too. There are many reasons people can become diabetic, including genetic disposition and other medical or physical conditions.
 
Doesn't really matter how or why anyone gets diabetes, or how it's portrayed in the media. Stop worrying so much and live life while you can I say.
 
mist said:
Doesn't really matter how or why anyone gets diabetes, or how it's portrayed in the media. Stop worrying so much and live life while you can I say.
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Easy to say that Mist. You are T1 and not portrayed in the media in the same way we are. It can be very demoralising.
 
Prem51 said:
I don't like the way the media generally portrays Type 2 diabetics as lazy overeating slobs too. There are many reasons people can become diabetic, including genetic disposition and other medical or physical conditions.
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But the media and the right wing, would not say anything against AIDS, Depression, Mental retardation in children, or Concussions.
 
Erin said:
But the media and the right wing, would not say anything against AIDS, Depression, Mental retardation in children, or Concussions.
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Sadly, that's not true. I've read casual and nasty throwaway comments about people with mental health issues and inappropriate use of terms to describe them, and I've also seen stereotyping comments about AIDS/HIV.

If you see inaccurate information given its always good to,correct them eg if the media says everyone with Type 2 is overweight - that's wrong. Other comments might be more than incorrect so that would be a matter for a complaint rather than a simple correction.
 
Avocado Sevenfold said:
Snap!
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I know this is supposed to be about type 2 but some of them take insulin and others take drugs that can give them hypo so for all of us whatever type you are I am concerned about public education. Currently all the public see are films where people inject other people in unmeasured amounts and when they appear to be hypo.

I saw another film the other day when a woman went hypo and her insulin had been destroyed in an accident so the search was on for more insulin. They couldn't find any so they gave her orange juice instead (???).
 
Squire Fulwood said:
I saw another film the other day when a woman went hypo and her insulin had been destroyed in an accident so the search was on for more insulin. They couldn't find any so they gave her orange juice instead (???).
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LOL! I must see this film

Treat a hypo with insulin?
 
mist said:
LOL! I must see this film

Treat a hypo with insulin?
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I don't think I have ever seen a film that didn't and they just whack it in. They have never heard of units or any of that big girls blouse stuff.
 
What alot of people don't realise is that T2 can take very many years to develop and it's often the T2 that causes the obesity...not the other way round. When you are T2 and have insulin resistance weight loss is very difficult. The last thing we need is to be told to lose weight....I have been trying to do that for 35 years! It's also very hard when others say to us that they can't put on weight. It isn't the same thing. The obese are blamed and shamed.

Thank you to the OP for asking the views of T2s
 
Type ones have no insulin and inject insulin!
Type two's have a little insulin and inject insulin!

All diabetics stuff themselves silly on junk food!
They have fatty livers because they consume lots of alcohol!

All type ones need a cure or a new pancreas!
All type two's need to eat carbs with every meal and take loads of medicine to help with glucose levels!

Diabetes is an incurable disease and all will have complications!
There are only two types of diabetes!

I think that's it!







The truth is out there!
 

Hi, Will. I'm not diabetic, here to prevent a diagnosis as I had most of the markers for developing T2. Nevertheless, here's my view:

The media, in general, is bad at distinguishing between T1 and T2, never mind LADA and RH. The overriding attitude is that T2's have brought it on themselves by getting fat and not getting enough exercise. There is an element of truth there, but it doesn't take into account the appalling dietary advice we've been force-fed for 50 years. That advice has ruined many a metabolism, like mine, and ignores the fact that some people don't process carbs well and are better with a high or higher fat diet.
 

Hi Will, I was diagnosed with T2 in Sept '16 and have found that virtually all my friends and family have no idea what it entails especially diet wise. I still get offered cakes, biscuits, sweets etc. or they think it's only sugar I 'can't have' . One friend even proudly offered to make me a sandwich with gluten free bread! To be fair I never gave diabetes any thought at all until I was diagnosed, it's not something one thinks about until you're affected by it.
I've received very little support or advice from my surgery and was told that my doctor has no interest in diabetic patients and leaves it all to the practice nurses ........
So, I've found living with T2 to be quite lonely so far, apart from this wonderful forum which has kept kept me going with encouragement and advice.
Eating out can be tricky but really it depends where you choose to eat.
 
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